using kerosene in diesel engine?

gamer

is it possible to use kerosene or home heating oil in a diesel engine?

peasant

"home heating oil" is diesel without the tax (and added colourant for detection), so technically not a problem, fiscally you're in big trouble if you get caught.

Kerosene is a no-go. It has different viscosity and ignition properties than diesel and would either not work or damage your engine.

MrFoxman360

Kerosene works in most diesel engines, and it should run OK on it, provided that its not a really new, technically advanced engine. The problem is that kerosene can be used as a spark ignition fuel as well as a compression ignition fuel and so has very bad lubrication properties compared with diesel. This can be a problem as most diesel engines rely on the fuel to lubricate the injector pump.

Kerosene IS home heating oil. What I believe Peasant is referring to is agricultural diesel, or green diesel, which is for use in non road going vehicles, tractors, plant machines and other vehicles in the W class. It is illegal to use this and in recent times the law has become more strict, but on a practical level its safer for your engine than kerosene.

leeroybrown

MrFoxman360 wrote: »

Kerosene IS home heating oil.

Not necessarily. Either of two things can be used as home heating oil: Gas Oil (essentially Agricultural Diesel) or Kerosene. From what I've seen, typically the cheaper Gas Oil is referred to as home heating oil although the use of modern boilers that actually require Kerosene may have changed that.

peasant

Diesel / agricultural diesel / home heating oil are the same thing ...just taxed differently.

Kerosene is something else altogether (also known as jet fuel)

leeroybrown

The only time you'll safely find Kerosene in diesel engines is part of a blended 'Winter Diesel' used in cold climates to prevent the low temperature properties of the fuel from preventing proper lubrication.

Run_to_da_hills

Kerosene is abrasive and can cause irreparable damage to fuel pump.

JHMEG

leeroybrown wrote: »

Not necessarily. Either of two things can be used as home heating oil: Gas Oil (essentially Agricultural Diesel) or Kerosene. From what I've seen, typically the cheaper Gas Oil is referred to as home heating oil although the use of modern boilers that actually require Kerosene may have changed that.

Gas Oil you refer to is diesel, no? My father-in-law used burn diesel in his oil boiler, but switched to kerosene as it's cleaner. It's also 1 or 2c dearer.

old boy

used it for years in an ould t.v.o. fergeson tractor, also in an ould 6.volt volks, a lot of backfiring etc but in dem days a man had to do what a man had to do

leeroybrown

JHMEG wrote: »

Gas Oil you refer to is diesel, no?

Yeah. It's usually sold as 'Gas Oil' for heating purposes.

throw in some vegetable oil and it makes up for the lack of lubricity in the fuel

its illegal though

unkel

gamer wrote: »

is it possible to use kerosene or home heating oil in a diesel engine?

What diesel engine?

We used diesel / petrol / kerosine / vegetable oil (used and unused) and the only noticeable difference was the smell. That was in an army tank though

gamer

A VAN engine, i didnt think a standard diesel engine would work ok,on petrol.

Kilree

My tuppence worth. As a domestic fuel kerosene is normally used in situations where the burner is located in the living area of a house (eg a Stanley oil fire oven/ch boiler in the kitchen). Gas oil cannot be used in these situations because of the fumes and is normally found where the burner is located in a separate outhouse.

HighlyCooL

my 2 cents. worked in a petrol station years ago a lad used to come in and fill a pick up with kerosene all the time, he also added 2lts of cooking oil(new) in to thicken it up. went home and look at the old chemistry book and there it was. kerosene is the next step up form diesel in the refinery.

Kerosene is thiner than diesel. you can use diesel in a oil burner if you change the nossels in the injector to alow more in to the combustion chamber.
And finaly red diesel(north) is green diesel(south)is white diesel(road)is marked gas oil(Agricultural Diesel red or green). its all the same just different dies and tax rates. to be honest if i had an old diesel i'd tip the kerosene in it and see if it works. but i have a petrol so not at the moment

Mr.Boots

Kerosene and home heating oil also smell different

derry

Diesel engines compress the fuel and it ignites and the quality one want is as close to zero octane and maxim cetane levels . Mixing in some kerozene is done in very cold weather to make diesel not gum up.

Petrol is low cetane fuel but higher octane and can if the octane level is low pre-igite (pinking or pre detonation) at low compression levels . Adding elements like lead or 5% bio fuel ethanol to increase octane helps reduce preignition.


When oil is refined the crude oil is heated up in a big kettle device .The lighter fuels like petrol (5 or 7 carbon chains ) float to the top and the heavier fuel like diesel (10 to 16 carbon chains )are lowwer down with kerosene floating in between petrol and diesel with a median carbon chain number (8 to 10 carbon chain ).The diferent fuels are then pulled off in these layers. In some countries the petrol will include more kerosene mixxed in the petrol than what we get in ROI or Europe generally. In other countries the diesel fuel will contain some extra kerozene particularly cold countries


The problem in ROI is kerosene has different names such as Parrifin or TVO(tractor vapourising fuel) or heating oil .
Best I can figure is heating oil has a octane of 20. Adding some petrol ~90 octane to~20 octane heating oil( kerosene ) will increase the octane and make it TVO . TVO for heavy work is best with low ~50 octane and for light work best is higher ~70 octane .So if you add more petrol say ~66/33 mix it will tend to make ~70octane and add less petrol for lesser for lowwer octane TVO fuel suchas ~50/50 mix to make ~50 octane TVO

TVO modified tractors will once the old style petrol tractor has run for a few minutes on pure petrol which heats the engine up and also the TVO as it passes close to the hot exhast stack then allow the tractor when it switches to 100% TVO to keep running to do the work on TVO fuel.

TVO sorta gives the petrol tractor more power like diesel does for hard work.It burns dirty though and requires more frequent decarbonisizing of the engine .It might completly muck up a cat in modern engine not made for so much soot

In Ireland it seems the term Parrifin is the fuel of even lowwer octane than kerosene and meant maybe for home heating or possibly the for the parrifin lights that were used before electricity. It seems that adding one unit of petrol to ten units of parrifin will make it become kerosene. Adding even more petrol will make it TVO



Kerosene come in different grades such as J1 or J4 for jets aircraft and R1 for rockets . Heating oil is lowwer quality possibly has a higher octane like 20 and parrifin I think has even lowwer octane again .


As Bio diesel is thicker than normal diesel with a lowwer cetane adding 50% diesel to bio diesel will increase the cetane enough to make bio diesel work.Alternitivly reforming bio diesel with methanol to improve Cetane in the bio diesel will work to allow 100% bio diesel to work.So logicaly adding some kerosene to the bio diesel might help reduce the thickness of the bio diesel The kerosene might have some extra cetane in it or mayby adding cetane concentrate products could solve those issues.

Modern diesel engines have very small presision injectors which might find high amounts of Kerosene a issue.Modern petrol cars with cats might find high mixes of kerosene in the petrol fuel a serious issue

Adding heating oil which is not taxed to petrol or diesel might work not sure haven't started my experments as I like to know what works and what doesn't in case there is fuel shortages My non flex fuel petrol car 98 Suziki with no convertion kit or mods runs fine on E85 bio fuel .Next is to convert to gas LPG and also try out TVO

It requires in the UK a free licence to make and use and make TVO and you pay the extra tax I think .Here in ROI I don't know how it works but the tax would still need to paid I assume to be legal to use TVO.My TVO experments will just be done in private grounds to test it out but not for long as I will remove the cat so as not to wreck it . I cant go on the road with no cat so it wont be an issue to try TVO on the road but only to know the car can do it. Then if there is a fuel shortage issue ,in those conditions maybe I can raid the home heating oil to keep the car running

But older hands out there may know more info than this so shoot your wad if you do

Derry

gamer

gamer wrote: »

A VAN engine, i didnt think a standard diesel engine would work ok,on petrol.

ha ha very smart, I meant indirect injection, direct injection, common rail or not etc..... my fault for not being clear I suppose

Farls

Mate of mine ran an old hiace on kerosene for 2 years before the engine packed in so lesson learned there!

I know vehicles running fine on agri diesel (red/green) for years now but as has been said it is illegal! :eek:

I also see a lot of guys putting in a mix of kerosene and diesel into yoks, not sure how good/bad this is!!

Matt Simis

JHMEG wrote: »

Gas Oil you refer to is diesel, no? My father-in-law used burn diesel in his oil boiler, but switched to kerosene as it's cleaner. It's also 1 or 2c dearer.

My boiler was also switched, Kero is definitely different. And as a side note its, dyed presumably, bright red so it looks like Ribena.

EDIT: Interesting post Derry!

Mellor

derry wrote: »

In Ireland seems the term Parrifin is the fuel is lowwer octane than kerosene and meant for home heating or possibly the for the parrifin lights that were used before electricity. It seems that adding one unit of petrol to parrifin will make it become kerosene.

Paraffin oil is Kerosene. There is no difference. There are differnet octane levels obviously, and different grades, and different grades may or may not be sold as parafin oil or kerosene, but regardless paraffin oil is kerosene. Paraffin lamps are also called kerosene lamps.
Paraffin oil is not to be confused with paraffin (incase somebody wikis it and doesn't know that paraffin is the more common name for paraffin wax).

Generally, paraffin is a common tongue name, and kerosene is the scientific name (also kerosine)

245

Mellor wrote: »

Generally, paraffin is a common tongue name, and kerosene is the scientific name (also kerosine)

My understanding is that kerosene is the American for paraffin or, if you like, that paraffin is the 'British' for kerosene

Bandara

The average Hydrocarbons in Derv are C12H26 (C = the quanitity of Carbon Atoms in the blend with H being the quantity of Hyrdogen Atoms in the blend),

The range of hydrocarbons found in in Home Heating Oil has a expanded range from about C10H25 to C16H34, which means that in effect on the lighter end of the scale the two products are essentially almost identical in composition at the lighter end of the scale, hence the dye agent that is often added to the light blend home heating oils in some countries tpo prevent people using the cheaper HHO product in their vehicles.

Bandara

245 wrote: »

My understanding is that kerosene is the American for paraffin or, if you like, that paraffin is the 'British' for kerosene

spot on

bull1648

All the travellers round carlow use kerosene in their vans mixed with cooking oil to add viscosity and lubrication.
Kerosene is marked red with a dye in the republic but in the north it is possible to buy unmarked white kerosene which can then be used in the way i already described to avoid detection by customs but if you get caught using it expect to get into deep sh*T

derry

bull1648 wrote: »

All the travellers round carlow use kerosene in their vans mixed with cooking oil to add viscosity and lubrication.
Kerosene is marked red with a dye in the republic but in the north it is possible to buy unmarked white kerosene which can then be used in the way i already described to avoid detection by customs but if you get caught using it expect to get into deep sh*T

I presume the vans are diesel vans > do you know what mix ratio they use such as 80% kerosene 20% bio fuel cooking oil???

Also using the Bio diesel cooking oil isn't illegal mixxed with tax paid diesel fuel.
Possibly as kerosene is allowed to be used in jet aircraft without to pay tax it might exist to be a loop hole that using kerosene with no tax paid isn't illegal for cars vans trucks etc .I am not sure for that but I don't know where it is written it is forbidden to use kerosene fuel in a car.

Also seems to me that kerosene mixed with some diesel and bio diesel cooking oil might not allow the tax fuel dippers equipment see it isn't all diesel mixed with bio diesel.

Seem the travelers haven't forgotten all the old tricks that every farmer or mechkanic of yester year knew.

Derry

Bandara

derry wrote: »

I presume the vans are diesel vans > do you know what mix ratio they use such as 80% kerosene 20% bio fuel cooking oil???

Also using the Bio diesel cooking oil isn't illegal mixxed with tax paid diesel fuel.
Possibly as kerosene is allowed to be used in jet aircraft without to pay tax it might exist to be a loop hole that using kerosene with no tax paid isn't illegal for cars vans trucks etc .I am not sure for that but I don't know where it is written it is forbidden to use kerosene fuel in a car.

Also seems to me that kerosene mixed with some diesel and bio diesel cooking oil might not allow the tax fuel dippers equipment see it isn't all diesel mixed with bio diesel.

Seem the travelers haven't forgotten all the old tricks that every farmer or mechkanic of yester year knew.

Derry

Since 1991 it has been completely illegal to have ANY quantity of Kerosene in the fuel tank of a motor vehicle, it is also completely illegal for a company/retailer to sell kerosene for use in a motor vehicle. It is also completely illegal for anyone to buy kerosene for any purpose relating to its use in a combustion engine.

It is also illegal for a member of the public to make any technical amendment to any hydrocarbon with the intention of making it possible to use it within a motor vehicle.

derry

Hammertime wrote: »

Since 1991 it has been completely illegal to have ANY quantity of Kerosene in the fuel tank of a motor vehicle, it is also completely illegal for a company/retailer to sell kerosene for use in a motor vehicle. It is also completely illegal for anyone to buy kerosene for any purpose relating to its use in a combustion engine.

It is also illegal for a member of the public to make any technical amendment to any hydrocarbon with the intention of making it possible to use it within a motor vehicle.

Thanks for the info
WHERE CAN I FIND THAT INFO WITTEN IN LAW IF YOU KNOW RATHER THAN TRWAAL THROUGH 1991

Derry

fryup

can kerosene be used in a petrol car ??

even with an additive??

Carawaystick

derry wrote: »

Diesel engines compress the fuel and it ignites

This is not quite correct.

Diesel engines compress Air, which heats up (Charles' Law), and inject the fuel at or near the end of the compression stage; the heat then ignites the fuel.