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Diesel Engines 300 tdi diesel starting out in alternative fuels

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pgs8

In Second Gear
Hi looking at alternative fuels at the moment, with a 300 tdi what is the cheapest form of fuel other than white diesel, im unsure of svo , biodiesel and wvo.
 
They run perfectly on heating oil (Kerosene) if you have somewhere to store it that keeps the cost down to about 60-70p a litre or less. If tested at the roadside there is no die in it and your OK. Only a chemical check would do anything and they very very rarely do that, I have never heard of it on a private vehicle here in the UK. If you want to ensure your OK legally, then get 500 litres of Kerosene, mix with 100 litres of road diesel and then fill it with old veg oil, engine oil etc to make a chemical soup, this runs perfectly in a 300TDi...I know for a fact as I ran mine on a similar ratio mix for nearly 3 years, no issues, no loss of power and no loss of mpg either.
 
according to a hopefully reliable source, heating oil has a tracer in it from source that helps them that care catch people running on it.
 
zollaf said:
according to a hopefully reliable source, heating oil has a tracer in it from source that helps them that care catch people running on it.
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According to VOSA and HMRC there is no tracer because there is not enough abuse taking place for the economic justification. They both told me that road cars and other vehicles will not run on Kerosene...oh how little they know.

Also, by mixing it with other "fuels" you can argue this is simply waste oils and fuels you are recycling for personal use only, the law allows up to 2500 litres to be used under these circumstances per year, another reason for no prosecutions.
 
the law allows 2500 litres of veg oil to be used, nothing else, no waste oils or other stuff. you are allowed a percentage of almost anything as an additive, might be 20 %.
according to a local boiler engineer,they started to use a tracer about 6 years ago. it causes excessive carbon build up on wicks in stoves and stops them working, until an additive was introduced to combat it.
from what i can work out, the only safe fuel is veg oil as this is a food product and can't have a tracer. anything else can. exactly how much truth is in this i don't know, i run on veg oil and dino so don't really care. those running on any illegal fuels take their own risk but hopefully they will get caught and punished well. its tax evasion plain and simple.
 
zollaf said:
the law allows 2500 litres of veg oil to be used, nothing else, no waste oils or other stuff. you are allowed a percentage of almost anything as an additive, might be 20 %.
according to a local boiler engineer,they started to use a tracer about 6 years ago. it causes excessive carbon build up on wicks in stoves and stops them working, until an additive was introduced to combat it.
from what i can work out, the only safe fuel is veg oil as this is a food product and can't have a tracer. anything else can. exactly how much truth is in this i don't know, i run on veg oil and dino so don't really care. those running on any illegal fuels take their own risk but hopefully they will get caught and punished well. its tax evasion plain and simple.
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It's only tax evasion if the law says it is, and before I used an "alternative" I checked with HMRC, as long as the total percentage of non-road fuel oils does not exceed 60% then your OK, that's why I do a mix that keep the non-road stuff at about 55%, I also keep records of my mixes. As I work in a Secure facility that requires a full X List clearance, I can't do anything illegal as that would cost me a Job!
 
Doesn't kerosone burn slightly hotter Jim ?

Lets say I had a 1500 litre tank what proportions of kerosene to other fuels would I need a) for it to be legal and 2) for the fuel not to b++ger my engine up after 10k miles ?
 
Bump.

To answer my own question a) above, going on Jims previous post if I have a 1500litre tank it needs to have no more than 900 litres heating oil - the rest staight diesel/waste oils for personal use.

Anyone any experience of running on kerosene - if anyone has run it "neat", then a mix like Jims is sure to be OK (?)
 
Well now Mr jbGood, no I haven't ever run kero in my 300tdi. BUT i would like to take this opportunity to comment on your 'post making' i always find your posts questioning, informative, numerical, and analytical. You and I have a similar brain pattern, some would say an engineers mind, but to me its ALL the info put together and rationalised that's important. I always look at things as a % of something else, ie, saving, loss, increased efficiency etc. its also quite infuriating to get 'into' a thread, then ask a question, and get no reply, it makes one think, does no body know, or nobody care. I enjoy you posts is what I'm saying, they get my mind going too.
 
Thanks Yostumpy :)

I can only guess with regards the kerosene that either not many have tried it or that, of those that have, very few are willing to comment for, shall we say, "legal" reasons. ;)

Googled around about running kerosene - consensus seems to be that it bu##ers up the fip in the medium term. And it does run hotter (as well as being less viscous)

Indeed, found a thread on another forum where a contributer named "yostumpy" made the point about kerosene bu##ering up a generator being run on the stuff ;) (same thread also mentions that the TD5 (for some reason) is the favoured engine for running kerosene)

Jim ran his vehicle on a kerosene soup for 3 years. I'd love for someone to pipe up and say "Kerosene ? Yeh, not a problem - me and a few blokes at work have access to it and have been using it for the last 10 years with absolutely no ill effects" - but I've got a feeling that, for whatever reason, thats not going to happen.

How anonymous is this forum, just as a matter of interest ? Would logging in via the Tor network make any difference ? Probably not. What about registering via the Tor network ?

Anyhow, like I said before, I would only want a legal way of utilising kerosene :angel2: - I'm just trying to work out why its gone kinda quiet.
 
i have run 80%ish kero but only for a few tanks i found my old 2.5 n/a ran less smokey but no other difference, i did read somewhere however that there is much less lubrication in kero so can wreck the injection pump, true? i dunno but i suppose you could just add a little 2 stroke oil or similar to lube it up a bit.
 
I suspect, as found with running veg oil, it depends at least partly on the make and model of injection pump. I'd also guess that temperature would play a part as cold kero would be more viscous than hot kero. The trouble with accounts of people running on alternative fuels is that really their account only applies to the credentials of their engine. When lots of people with different makes/ages/models of engine report their findings then you can get a clearer picture. The problem with reporting engine failures is that they may be nothing to do with the fuel at all, unless a thorough stripdown and examination is done to confirm this. I'm very wary of the validity of a single experiment over a small mileage. When 5 or more people report similar findings over 10,000 miles or more, then I start believing there might be some truth to it.

Just my 2 penneth ;)
 
jbgood said:
Anyone any experience of running on kerosene - if anyone has run it "neat", then a mix like Jims is sure to be OK (?)
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We used to run our N/A Miliitary LR's on 100% AVTUR (refined kero for aircraft) in Norway. They went a bit faster! :evilgrin: They also ran a bit hotter than treated diesel but that was ok as the extreme cold counteracted the temp while driving even with the grill covered. Had no failures that I know of over 4 years. Needed to change the oil more regularly though.
 
tack43 said:
We used to run our N/A Miliitary LR's on 100% AVTUR (refined kero for aircraft) in Norway. They went a bit faster! :evilgrin: They also ran a bit hotter than treated diesel but that was ok as the extreme cold counteracted the temp while driving even with the grill covered. Had no failures that I know of over 4 years. Needed to change the oil more regularly though.
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Yeah - that's interesting - especially that it was in Norway and the cold temps and so on. Rings true. I'm assuming the colder temps would make the kerosene more viscous. Running it here in the UK under our normal temperatures would necessitate the use of additives I reckon - as in Jims cocktail above.

As a matter of interest I was talking to a mate of a mates friends dogs uncle yesterday :D who had been straining his red diesel thru cat litter (takes out the red dye) - BUT he's just (after only 83k - it's an Isuzu by the way) had to drop in a new engine -with hindsight he reckons that filtering the red had taken away some of its lubricant properties (he'd not added anything to it afterwards) and it had bu##ered the engine. He compared the filtered red to heating oil/kerosene.
 
zollaf said:
and probably cost him thousands of £ssss in cat litter :)
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Lol - probably yes.

But 83k miles at £1.40 a litre vs. 47p per litre red - lets say 25mpg. Do the sums.

As I say, I don't really know the man - and wouldn't condone cat litter at all - as I said it did b##ger his engine.

You reading this Google ? ;)
 
A pal of mine is an aircraft engineer and regularly runs his beastie on avtur as they have to drop fuel out of the aircraft for maintenance. He never runs at 100% he adds a wee drop of hydraulic oil (about 5%). He's done it for years.
 
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