Alright, its bad…bad …BAD …
VERY, VERY BAD
To use used motor oil as fuel in a diesel engine.
But why?
Suppose we cut the oil with enough kerosene so that it thins out the viscosity approaching that of real diesel fuel.
Also suppose we run the oil/kerosene mix through a super-fine filter to remove the (relatively) big chunks that would clog the fuel line and injectors.
What precisely gets harmed?
One possible reason.
http://uanews.ua.edu/mar02/rose032202.htm
Dunno if I like the idea of a black-smoke-belching 18-wheeler sending lead, chromium, and cadmium out into the atmosphere.
Because, diesel fuel is just that, ** a fuel** that’s suppose to burn. Motor oil is a lubricant, which is designed to not burn, even at very high temperatures. Diesel fuel has a high flash point (the point where it will vaporize enough to actually ignite, around 200F or so, IIRC) whereas motor oil is suppose to remain liquid at even higher temperatures. It will burn, eventually, but it’s an impractical fuel.
Diesel fuel and motor oil have similar viscosities, but otherwise totally different purposes.
I talked to a veteran of the “Red Ball Express” who delivered thousands of tons of supplies via truck convoy during the Vietnam War.
He mentioned they were at one point without any diesel for their trucks, and the motor pool guys or fuel guys concocted a home brew consisting of Mogas (loooow octane gasoline) and 90 weight gear oil. Said it smoked like hell but worked OK.
As long as you are willing to mix it with kerosene, why don’t you just cut out the middle man and leave out the motor oil altogether. Kerosene and diesel fuel ae remarkably similar and can interchanged for some applications. As a matter of fact, diesel fuel, kerosene, jet fuel, and home fuel oil are basically the same thing.
I once owned a diesel Toyota pickup, which even some Toyota dealers said was never produced. I heard it said that one could, if desperate enough, run on various vegetable oils. I never bought that because although you can set many of these oils alight, they don’t seem to burn well enough to consider as containing energy sufficient to run an internal conbustion engine. It seems to me as a non-engineer that what is required in a motor fuel is the ability to burn thoroughly as either a vapor or very fine mist. This would seem to require something that is relatively thin, and not viscous.
A more technical person can correct me here, but what I think I mean is that while motor lubrication oil and vegetable oils may be flammable, they are not truly combustible.
I think that if you really, really wanted to run a diesel engine on an alternate fuel, you might be better off doing as Shagnasty suggests and look to kerosene, fuel oil, or some other oil intended as fuel as opposed to a lubricant or cooking oil. And don’t do your experiments in any vehicles I have to run, please.
With proper atomization and some pre-heating, you can use a lot of higher viscosity fuels successfully in diesel-cycle engines. But you do have to change the injectors, etc, etc.
Here is a place to buy a diesel-to-grease conversion, so your diesel can run on waste vegetable oil from restaurants.
I wonder if the exhaust smells like french fries?
B.
Is that true? I know that jet fuel is basically kerosene (I use Jet-A in my kerosene lantern), but I thought Diesel fuel was altogether different – not that I’ve actually looked into it. How close are they?
All the kerosene I’ve ever seen has been a clear, thin fluid (probably similar in consistency to gasoline), while home heating oils is much more viscous and dark in color.
Using used deep-fryer grease…and a processed fuel called
Bio-diesel…does indeed smell like french fries.