Kids & morals, diesel & petrol

[Didge]

Hi guys, it's nice to know your kids listen to your advice occasionally. I told my son the other day that when you borrow someone's car you should at least always leave more fuel in it than when you took it to pay for the wear and tear, etc. Well he borrowed the old Def (95 Tdi) and put fuel in it - VORTEX 91 diesel he says to me 10 minutes or so ago. ALARM! ALARM! ALARM! I'd been driving it today and it's going like a slug, I'm changing down to 1st to get up any halfway decent hill and I've just drained out about 15 litres of unleaded out of the tank and drained the fuel filter and am wondering what damage unleaded would cause and whether I should try to blow out all the fuel lines. Any suggestions? I only thought about the fuel cos I was testing the turbo with the hose off and the smoke out of the exhaust was blue - ha 2 stroke Defender, eh? Thanking you in advance
cheers Gerald

[Blknight.aus]

drain everything you can blow out the lines that you can then fill up with fresh diesel , crack the injector pump bleed line and hand prime (or crank on the startermotor with the the fuel solenoid lead off) the fuel system untill fresh diesel is coming out of the bleed. Then crack all 4 injector lines, put the fuel solenoid lead back on crank the engine for 20 revolutions or so with the throttle wide open. Nip up the injector lines and crank it up at Idle and leave it to run for a few minutes then drive tentatively till everything is warmed up and your not getting diesel knock.

if he filled it up and the mix is less that about 25% petrol you can get away with a drain and fill and that will be enough to keep you out of trouble. If youve done that and have the ability to put in more than 1/2 a tank of fuel and feel like risking it you can just top it up and drive it gently till the petrols gone. some people have been known to leave the tank to vent to atmosphere while they drive to help the fuel evaporate off.

Id drain it and replace it personally.

[Didge]

Thanks Dave, I was hoping you'd be the one to reply. Tank is completely empty now but I reckon the lines have pure petrol in them so I'll follow your advice and try to clean out everything. I'll have to refer to the manual but will let you know how I go. Firstly, I thought it was the turbo, then the intercooler but the blue smoke made me wonder. Thanks again for your help and whenever I'm up that way again or you're in Sydney, I'm definitely gonna buy you a drink or two.
cheers Gerald

[Blknight.aus]

if the tank is nearly empty you can try (depending on your patients) putting in 15-20l of diesel and priming the hand pump (this is an ideal time to cut the line somewhere and install a facet lift pump) to purge the line then drain the diesel and do it again.


but the best answer is to purge everything you can, its what the dealers charge you to do.

[Didge]

I'm getting old (so the kids tell me) now - 51, so my patience with these things is slowly increasing. If a facet lift pump is not too expensive I'll go with it, but would that mean I need to bypass the existing lift pump or just install it in the line between the tank and existing pump?
cheers Gerald

[scott oz]

Ok second time I've seen a facet mentioned what are they?

[Blknight.aus]

its an exceptionally reliable low volume low pressure electric fuel pump, I occasionally refer to them as rattler pumps.

if you are going to use it as a priming pump you can just cut the line coming out of the fuel water seperator down near the tank and install it there. (make up a bypass hose for the lift pump just incase you need to bypass the pump later on in life)

if you are going to replace the existing lift pump mount it up near where the existing lift pump is and bypass the pump. I make up a shorting loop to go from the inlet to the outlet of the mechanical pump to seal it up to prevent it from drawing crud in, or pumping oil out.

[mike_ie]

Ok second time I've seen a facet mentioned what are they?

https://www.aulro.com/afvb/images/imported/2010/07/1312.jpg

You tend to see them used a lot in small boats and such - very reliable piece of kit.

Sounds like your kid may be smarter than you think ;) By the looks of it, no-one will be asking him to fill up the Defender for a loooooong time...

[Michael2]

Alpine Diesel is often 20% petrol, so as already stated, if the petrol mix is dilute you should be fine. I hope it doesn't end up costing you anything more than a tank of fuel.

[steveG]

Alpine Diesel is often 20% petrol, so as already stated, if the petrol mix is dilute you should be fine. I hope it doesn't end up costing you anything more than a tank of fuel.

Are you sure about that?
I know they use heating oil in Alpine Diesel, but pretty sure they don't use petrol.

Steve

[Blknight.aus]

poor mans alpine diesel can be made by mixing petrol into diesel...

one of my old school mechanical engineering books had a compensation table for the percentage of petrol you could reasonably put in diesel as the temperature drops. at the same time you can put kero (or in a pinch diesel) into the engine oil to stop it from thickening up with the cold (the kero/diesel evaporates out as the engine warms up)

[mike_ie]

Are you sure about that?
I know they use heating oil in Alpine Diesel, but pretty sure they don't use petrol.

Steve

You can indeed.We use it back home during the cold winters to stop the diesel from gelling. Many people running SVO here also use it as an additive to thin out the oil a bit and make it easier on the injection pump. So it's not a death knell for a diesel engine. It's much more interesting watching the smoke come out of a petrol car that's just had diesel put in it...

[Didge]

Mike ie, yeah filling her up, eh?! he just offered to go fill the jerry can so I can flush out the system and I said no! I'll show you which pump to use! oh, and that's a point -watching black smoke from a petrol car - hahaha!!
Thanks for your advice guys, am working on it right now :(
cheers Gerald

[Tombie]

So it's not a death knell for a diesel engine. It's much more interesting watching the smoke come out of a petrol car that's just had diesel put in it...

It is to a modern Turbo Diesel...

Like around $13,000+ worth of damage to a TDV6 if you put petrol in there!

[mike_ie]

It is to a modern Turbo Diesel...

Like around $13,000+ worth of damage to a TDV6 if you put petrol in there!

Fair point. I was going on his engine being a TDI. If you could shovel coal into it, I'm fairly sure that it would probably keep going.... :D

[Blknight.aus]

Fair point. I was going on his engine being a TDI. If you could shovel coal into it, I'm fairly sure that it would probably keep going.... :D

nahh the TDI draws the line at sweet lite crude, might have a shot at doing the fozzy over to coal...

[2234jones]

In the UK we used to put petrol in with the diesel in winter to stop it waxing up, along as you drain all the petrol by the tank, and fill with Diesel and bleed the system through replacing the fuel filter, i don't think it would do too much damage.

cheers Mark

Land Rover 200 Tdi Defender owner (http://landroverfreak.blogspot.com)

[slug_burner]

A BP chemist came over as a guest speaker to the club and spoke of alpine diesel. In Aus Alpine diesel/winter diesel is provided in the higher altitude areas of Aus. The most common ways of lowering the cloud and pour points in diesel is to mix in kero or heating oil. Could point is the temp when diesel turns cloudy which is the first sign of the wax crystals forming in the fuel. The pour point is the temp when the wax crystals have formed to the extent that you cannot pour diesel any more.

Common rail diesels don't like winter diesel prepared with kero.

The temp difference between the winter and summer diesel in Aus is not that great something like a pour point of -3C for summer and -6C for winter. To achieve that a 5% kero can be used.

Diesel in oil will only promote earlier gelling of the oil and happens in diesel engines that have diesel contaminating the sump oil.

[Didge]

While we're on the topic guys, when I thought my problem was the turbo the chap out at land vehicle spares suggested I clean out the intercooler with detergent and water. Is that ok?
cheers gerald

[B92 8NW]

While we're on the topic guys, when I thought my problem was the turbo the chap out at land vehicle spares suggested I clean out the intercooler with detergent and water. Is that ok?
cheers gerald

I used detergent and water after cleaning it out with petrol. Thought it needed something a bit stronger than water to strip all the crap out.

Just make sure you rinse it well with the detergent and water and get all the fumes out.

[Didge]

Yeah, I wondered how detergent would remove oil. As far as I'm aware most degreasers are not good on aluminium so that should remove them from the equation, I guess. Any ideas on turps or kero? But I guess they're more expensive than petrol these days.
Thanks B92

[fclandy]

I can't blame my kids. I just put 80l of unleaded in my Td5:( and drove it for 20km before realising. Managed to drain about 65l. Trying to get myself revved up to replace the filter and clean out the lines on a cold Melbourne evening in the driveway.

[Didge]

I feel for you. Firstly, you need to find enoughcontainers and then get to draining it and then try to filter it into another car. I've done everything, blown everything out but can't manually prime the lift pump, filter and injector pump. Have been at it for hours. Giving up for the night, try again tomorrow.

[Didge]

Thanks to all who helped, managed to get started today. As Blknight (Dave)suggested I emptied the water separator near the fuel tank, replaced the fuel filter & used the compressor to blow out all the lines. Then I tried to prime the fuel pump manually but after hours just couldn't get it to work; even connected a tube and tried sucking it along the line. Eventually replaced the fuel pump with another std mechanical one (but will install the facet pump in the near future). Still couldn't really get fuel to the filter manually so took off the filter and turned over the motor till fuel came out (had to jump battery to another car as was starting to slow down). When the filter was full, I let off the injection pump bleed/ inlet bango connection, then nipped it up and disconnected the injector connnections till I was sure only diesel was coming out and upon reconnection PRESTO! - away we went :) Apart from wasting way too many hours on this at least I learnt a lot about the fuel system. Also got the son to work on it with me which was good. Thanks again to all of you who put forth suggestions.
cheers Gerald

ps how'd you go fclandy? get it sorted?