Running on Paraffin

pariffin engines normally had a heat exchanger to warm the paraffin first, thus they used to start the engines on petrol for a couple of minutes first

A diesel has a glow plug. Is this not enough? As far as I am aware diesel and paraffin both require heat before they will combust. Surely the heat provided by the glow plugs willbe enough?!

yes it may well start ok, but without heating it first then it will not burn cleanly. its like running a diesel on vegitable oil, the oil needs to be preheated to 80 to 90 c ,or it will not spray from the injectors but come out of the injectors as a jet of fuel, thus not burning cleanly enough, thus leading to blocked exhaust ports and a decoke within a few months. i know these from facts as i used to run engines on both of these when i was a livaboard.....

The chap I know who runs his Landy on waste veg oil reckons that the pump and layout of the fuel pipe heats it up enough run on happily. But then I've lost count of the number of engines he's got through in the last year...

Funny nobody's mentioned having to pay duty on the paraffin, or am I being a spoilsport?

The place that I know to buy paraffin from the pump is a petrol station so I assume you are alreeady paying duty on it? If not why would it be from a pump?

Sorry guys, some of your advice is wrong, To get a petrol engine to run on parrafin ( or TVO) you have to heat the paraffin to near boiling to get it to vapourise.

This does not apply to a diesel engine as the fuel is vapourised by being sprayed in under pressure. Instead a seperate set of problems confront us. Problem 1 . Paraffin is much drier than Diesel and so needs a lube oil added to it to lubricate the pump otherwise the pump will pack up really quickly, this is characterised by lots of tiny metal particles in the filter housing. You could run 50/50 with diesel I guess , would that provide enough lube?

Problem 2 .

The nice man in a suit with the briefcase will impound your vehicle, you'll never see it again , and you get a hefty fine . There is an exemption for "tractor vapourising oil" TVO but only for agricultural use .

Steve the grease

Because it's easier to dispense. But that doesn't mean duty is being charged on it's use as a road fuel. Mike.

Yeah right.

The message from "Big Joe" contains these words:

You mean apart from getting dipped by C&E?

The message from "Big Joe" contains these words:

Eh? What's a pump got to do with it? That's just a convenient method of dispensing it.

Paraffin has most definitely /not/ had road fuel duty paid on it, no matter what it comes out of.

he/she could report it to a local dvla office and pay the extra duty on it, its some where between 20p - 30p per litre

I would have thought it would be taxed the same as diesel, i.e. 47.1p per litre.

This may be a bit before your time, fellas, but I ran my petrol engine on a mixture of petrol and paraffin during the Suez crisis (when petrol was severely rationed) without any mechanical problems at all other than loss of power.

The mixture I cannot remember but it might have been around one-third paraffin.

The only real problem was the law. Firstly, it was highly illegal because of the duty. Secondly, the big give-away was the smell. If you went around the back of the car the exhaust smelt very sweet and paraffiny.

====================== What car was it? One with a low compression side valve engine?

Cic.

Yes. A Morris Minor.

My genuine petrol paraffin tractor (american export model - not TVO) has special stellite valve seats - which may predict a problem