[Vwdiesel] Dead petrol; deeper dig :o)

[James Hansen]

You called?
:-)

Old tractors ran on what was then called distillate, a not-quite-diesel 
not-quite-gasoline and not kerosene middle grade with very low octane 
rating, and lots of longer chain hydrocarbons.  So, if you could light 
the stuff, it burned fiercly, BUT, you couldn't have much for 
compression, or it would knock to high heaven.  Notice the small 
"starting tanks" on old gas tractors?

Hmmm. Yes?  read on.

You started and stopped them on gas, just like the veg oil crowd 
switches tanks for starting and stopping, but after the engine was warm, 
you switched to the distillate.  Some, such as the old standard John 
Deere D used water injection, as did most older stationary engines- 
there was a separate jet for water feed, so the water injection would 
slow down the burn, and prevent harmful detonation when they finally 
heated up, and you could burn the higher power, lower cost fuel.

I'm not sure what the distillate was actually, a then unusable waste 
fractionate between gasoline and diesel, or something contrived to be a 
middle ground between diesel and gas, I'm not sure.    I know it was 
cheaper than gas, but was not diesel.  we make our own by mixing 2/3 
gas, 1/3 diesel, and the old tractors run quite well on it when hot... 
very hot- they need rad shutters and such to get to operating temp. 
Tractor manufacturers built motors specially to run on the stuff, 
because it was cheaper, so I tend to think it may have been a 
fractionate that had no use at the time, or not high volume use at least 
initially.

Engines had to be specially designed to run on the stuff (very low 
compression and dished pistons), you could order most tractors back in 
the day to burn either or, or just for gas.  There were  conversion kits 
to convert to gas in the 50's for the older Jd 2 cylinders that 
consisted of pistons, and manifold.

So, dead gas burns much as distillate did, at least in my experience. 
It stinks to high heaven in the process, but the old tractors designed 
for distillate just love the stuff.

-james

S. Shourds wrote:
>> Maybe preheating is the answer? Higher 
>> compression in a gasser?
>>  
>>
> 
> I'm having a vague, unsubstantiated memory of gasoline tractor engines 
> running on kerosene by heating the fuel prior to induction in order to 
> get it to vaporize.  May not have been kerosene, but seems like it was a 
> heavier-than-gasoline fraction. 
> 
> Perhaps one of our more tractor-conversant listmembers can corroborate 
> or clarify my recollection.  Or, of course, tell me I've been breathing 
> too many of the fumes at work, depending on my accuracy. 
> 
> -Shalyn
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