I'm moving job locations soon and I've found a Kero supplier on the route who will sell it in small amounts rather than IBC's etc.
What are the why's and wherefores again of running your car on kero? Something about lubricity?
Lots of people sell it in small amounts because it is used as solvent, small heaters, nutters like me for running gas turbines on, mixing with ether and oil for model aircraft engines etc.
Kero looks and smells like white pump diesel. At least it does if the supplier you have uses white! Some dont... It froths up the same when shaken, smells looks and seems to behave exactly the same. Both have about 15500 kalories per LB of fuel and both are great in compression ignition engines.
My brothers house in the country has white kero in his oil tank so its easily available.
It smells almost exactly the same when burned too.
The difference is that kerosene is slightly thinner although feels the same oiliness on your fingers.. To measure oil viscosity a thing called a redwood gauge is used. Think about a container with a hole in it...
Deisel is 35 second oil. (the time it takes to flow the correct amount) Kerosine is 28 second according to the redwood thingy... So pretty close.
Central heating boilers dont call it "diesel" or "red diesel" or "kerosene" like we do since names are a bit confusing with different people calling different fuels the same thing and visa versa... They just specify 28 second oil or 35 second oil. That way theres no confusion. And in any case most will be fine on either. The only thing thats different is starting. The 28 second oil vapourises easier. So your car should start better and take less warming up. In my old transit van many moons ago I couldnt notice any difference.
So if this thinner oil concerns you, add say 100 to 1 cheap two stroke oil to it. Kero is slightly less in lubrication since its a bit thinner. This will prevent any diesel pump issues, although I doubt it really would be a problem anyway.
Dont blame me if your engine blows up though or you get arrested!
Warning...... Dont confuse this stuff with paraffin. In the US the term paraffin and kerosene are used interchangably. But here were we live its not! Paraffin is thinner again and is not very oily and is made from a bunch of leftover fractions mixed up rather than a single narrow temperature range fraction like kero or diesel. And it smells different. Paraffin may damage your engine although it may still run reasonably well. But its often died pink (pink paraffin) or blue (esso blue) etc anyway so nothing to gain. However its also available clear from many places. I have used some when desperate in the distant past with no harm done but it smells very different when burned so you would be able to tell following! And its really does need say
50 to 1 oil... I had no choice when I was a lad, because diesel pumps were a rarity and petrol stations mostly had paraffin for olde fashioned paraffin heaters. Thats how I found out it would work ok.
Lol is there a chance of that? Fuel pump maybe, like you say...
Cheers for that, I think I'll give them a bell in the morning and find out if it's dyed. If it isn't I notice they also sell 'bioheat' i.e. B100 sold without the road duty on it. If I turned up with a boot full of 20l containers and none went in the fuel tank they couldn't really say anything could they...
Theres a chance anything could happen. But if you are running on kero and it does then you will blame it. But it may have happened anyway...
You should see the number of people that blame the nitrous when their engine blows up!
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