Would running a percentage of paint thinner (mineral spirits) work?

Obviously it shouldn't be a standard practice, but what would be the outcome of adding say a gallon or two or pain thinner to a nearly full tank of gasoline? Any chemists out there to make any guesses as to the problems of using a 1:15 ratio of paint thinner to gasoline in an unleaded gasoline car?

Would ethanol be a better choice? its more expensive, I can buy paint thinner for 1.99 a gallon at the hardware store.

Yeah, I KNOW its a dumb idea. But if a person HAD to use something, paint thinner should work.

Reply to
NoName
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If you are attemting to destroy your vehicle then yes paint thinner will do a fine job. if you are trying to dilute your fuel to save fuel cost $1.99 a gallon isn't saving you anything. if you are attemting to clean you fuel sytem buy somthing that is made for cleaning your fuel system. I believe Mr. Stern will probably chime in and give his opinion on fuel additives.

Reply to
TNKEV

If a person has a nearly full tank of gasoline, then one doesn't HAVE to add any crapola to the fuel tank.

Reply to
Daniel J. Stern

What on earth is the objective of this question? If you're diluting paint thinner 20:1, its probably not going to harm anything. In fact its probably not going to DO anything AT ALL, other than increase deposits on the spark plugs, increase emissions, and make the catcon work harder, so why add it?

Reply to
Steve

I guess the question is asked as the major ingredients of many of the "fuel injector" cleaners is MINERAL SPIRITS.

And MOST of the gas driers on the market are METHANOL, or ETHANOL.

Reply to
NoName

Well...no. Petroleum distillates are the vehicle for the active cleaning ingredients.

Well...no. Ethanol or isopropanol.

Reply to
Daniel J. Stern

Adding paint thinner will allow you to pass an emissions test. The dealership I worked at once (Burnaby Hyundai) now closed down, used to add it to all the shit boxes they sold that could not pass emissions tests. Always passed after. however the cars would come back a couple of months later as the fuels injectors ended up dissolving and the fuel pumps would destroy themselves. But hey there is no warranty on those!

Reply to
David

Dilution aside, I can tell you this: In the mid 80's, I got the brilliant idea that paint thinner would be the ideal general purpose cleaner in my garage.

Here's what I did: I started wiping down my tools with it after I used them - really got them claen and made them shine, and I opened the hood of the car I owned at the time and wiped all the visible parts down to make it really shine and look clean.

As a result, within 6 months, here's what happened: The handle of every plastic-handled screwdriver I owned completely crumbled into little pea-sized pieces of plastic when I attempted to apply any torque, and I had to replace every piece of exposed rubber and plastic on top of the engine - all vacuum hoses and every plastic part. The previously soft and pliable hoses were hard, brittle, and very weak.

If that was the result of a one time, short-term, undiluted exposure, I can't imagine a 20:1 contionuos exposure over months, much less years, would come out much better for plastic parts in the system.

Bill Putney (To reply by e-mail, replace the last letter of the alphabet in my adddress with the letter 'x')

Reply to
Bill Putney

That would completely go along with what I would expect - see my other post in this thread (I saw your post after posting that)

Bill Putney (To reply by e-mail, replace the last letter of the alphabet in my adddress with the letter 'x')

Reply to
Bill Putney

I realize you probably won't even read this, because of all the other (flippant) answers piling up. But the term "paint thinner" is much much too broad to be answerable. It includes many solvents, ketones, for instance, which will melt lots of plastics.

Mineral spirts makes a better question. "Would it hurt my car to run on mineral spirits?" If we're talking about once, or mixed with gasoline 1:15, then clearly not. Mineral spirit is a pretty boring solvent, a lot like gasoline but somewhat heavier, and it doesn't have any magic solvent powers. laquer thinner, on the other hand, would melt everything you've got, I'll bet. I haven't tried it, and don't plan to.

Reply to
Joe

What's the street price for toluene or xylene? Wholesale price seems to have hovered around $1 per gallon last few years. Not sure where you can buy this stuff (retail) in large quantities (say, 5 gallon pails).

If cheap enough, they'd make a good bulk additive (gasoline contains a good bit of those 2 items as it is).

Toluene is normally sold (in small bottles) as an octane booster I think.

Nitromethane and nitro-propane might give you some interesting performance increase (again as a bulking agent it depends on the price per gallon). I think nitromethane is the main ingredient in 2-cycle (maybe 4 cycle too) fuel for small hobby engines (model planes, boats, etc). Nitromethane is I think the best solvent for superglue (better then acetone).

Now if you really want to mess with your fuel system, I remember reading that water injection had some good fuel economy effects. I think this was explored quite a bit on airplane engines during WW2, and even today many aviation engines are equipped for water injection.

Maybe this is urban legend, but I've heard of people that ran their diesel cars on home heating oil (or maybe mixed it in with regular diesel). This sort-of makes sense - home heating oil isin't usually taxed like pump diesel for cars.

Reply to
MoPar Man

The "paint thinner" I was referring to IS mineral spirits

The local hardware store sells ethanol, methanol, toluol, xylol, methyl ethyl ketone etc for about $8.99-$12.99/gallon The paint thinner is Mineral Spirits and is generally on sale for $1.99 a gallon

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Isn't there some product that used to be advertised to store in your trunk, and use as an emergency when you run out of gas? I wonder if IT was an octane 90 mineral spirit?

Reply to
NoName

The chemical you buy in any hardware store labeled "Paint Thinner" is also labeled as "Mineral Spirits".

Bill Putney (To reply by e-mail, replace the last letter of the alphabet in my adddress with the letter 'x')

Reply to
Bill Putney

And for all intents and purposes, "Mineral spirits" is about the same thing as "Kerosene."

One thing that adding mineral spirits to gasoline WILL do and which I didn't mention before is to LOWER the effective octane rating. Not raise it. Heavier refined oils like kerosene, Jet-A, various mineral spirits and diesel are all naturally very low-octane fuels. Yes, some octane boosters do contain mineral spirits, but only as a carrier solvent for the other additives that actually raise the octane. Mineral spirits alone are an octane anti-booster.

Reply to
Steve

" Maybe this is urban legend, but I've heard of people that ran their diesel cars on home heating oil (or maybe mixed it in with regular diesel). This sort-of makes sense - home heating oil isin't usually taxed like pump diesel for cars."

No. 2 heating oil is exactly the same as diesel for vehicles; sort of.

It may or may not have the same Cetane rating. It may or may not have too much sulphur. It may or may not have too much water. It may or may not have been properly filtered for solids.

But you are right, it does not have the road use tax applied, thus making its use a federal and state tax law violation.

Richard.

Reply to
Richard

something, paint

years,

One summer day, when I was a teenager. I had plans to go to Six Flags Magic Mountain with my friends. Before I could go, I had to mow the lawn. I was just two to three passes from having it done, when the mower ran out of gas. I did not want to take the time to go to the nearest service station, so I went in the garage and found some charcoal lighter fluid and paint thinner. I poured both into the tank. The mower started and ran so that I could finish the job.

My parents found out when the wanted to know what happened to the rest of the lighter fluid. They were not pleased to say the least. The mower ran a few more years before I moved out. I don't know what if any damage was done, but would not recommend the practice.

-Kirk Matheson

Reply to
kmatheson

On Thu, 19 May 2005 snipped-for-privacy@sisna.com unnecessarily quoted four whole, entire posts in their entirety in order to add, inter alia, this comment:

Which is keen and all, but most lawnmower engines have very low compression relative to automobile engines.

Reply to
Daniel J. Stern

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