Thread: Will shandy of unleaded mixed with 20% diesel be usable in Series I

Well, in the mid to late 1970's an oil company in Brisbane unscrupulously promoted a tanker driver's strike to cause panic buying by their service station franchisees in order to get quit of two tanks of motor spirit & distillate shandy caused by a pumping error. Never heard a peep about it from anyone. Of course, only the oil company and the servo operators knew about it and they stayed schtumm.

I used to run my old six on 50% petrol 50% kero with out a problem. Starting was the only issue as the kero would consentrate in the bowl while stopped but the electric pump would top it up with fuel when it worked. So if yours has the hand pump on the fuel pump you should be right.

From what I have been told there is a fair chance that while the engine will run OK, the diesel component of the fuel won't actually burn. A fair proportion of it will get past the rings, overfilling the sump.
This could take quite some time, particularly in a low use engine.

Upper cylinder lubricant! If it doesn't foul the plugs it will be fine.

What was it created for? 80% diesel and 20% unleaded as a winter fuel I've heard of, but not the other way around.

FWIW I'd think all you would do is decrease the combustibility of the mix (i.e. INCREASE the octane rating) and add lubricant. I can't imagine why it wouldn't burn, but it won't burn well - might come in handy if escaping from CHAOS though ...

It was created by not paying attention when filling a tank

It was supposed to be diesel and nothing else but unleaded got added when I was doing 2 things at once and running late for something. Stupidity I know....

Dave, just what sort of volume are you talking about?
A few litre's of Methanol might get it to a more Low Compression kindness.
With the added bonus that "Meth" is Hygroscopic. It will absorb any water in the tank, mix with the petrol, and burn the hydrogen\oxygen out as fuel. NOICE.


Got to go, just got blacked out by sudden thunder storm.

Originally Posted by jimbo110

Upper cylinder lubricant! If it doesn't foul the plugs it will be fine.

I recall a ferguson TEA running like absolute crap on a similar mix years ago. Whether it was plug fouling or not we never checked. It came right with straight petrol back in the tank.

It should settle out with the diesel in the bottom of the tank. So carefully siphoning or decanting will get the top half off the tank and leave mostly diesel behind. Once you're down to what you think is less than 50% petrol it'll probably run in a diesel.

Maybe let it settle and freeze it. The diesel might wax up, but the petrol might keep it dissolved. I haven't tried this particular method.