How would molasses in my fuel make my car act?
 

My 4 year old son poured a good deal of molasses into my '86 MB 300 SDL gas tank while I wasn't paying attention. Don't ask me how...:D

As you can imagine, I am somewhat leery thinking about even starting her up now. Should I empty the tank first or should I simply start her up and burn it out? If I do the latter, will it make my car run....er....sluggish?!

Any help would be much appreciated.

i'd drain it. and rinse the tank.



and i wouldnt use it for baking either. :D

I know that sugar has a drastic, solidifying reaction in gasoline, but I'm not sure about diesel fuel. I personally wouldn't risk it. I'd follow retx's suggestion.

You'd be wise to perform a little test.

Pour some molasses in a quart of diesel fuel and observe what it does. If it does not dissolve and simply falls to the bottom of the container and sits there, then draining the tank isn't going to be the final solution because the molasses won't be removed with the diesel fuel.

The tank will probably need to be removed and cleaned.

However, if it dissolves in the diesel fuel, then a complete drain of the tank should be sufficient.

Sugar and gasoline don't mix. The sugar just sits in the bottom of the tank.
Molasses and diesel, I dunno. I'd drain and flush the tank as others have suggested.

But nobody suggested what I should do with my kid!

Seriously, I will try your suggestions. Thank you retx, Larry Bible, Brian Cohen, and Chas H.:)

Now you have to tell us how exactly this happened. I molasses a common toy for your child? :D

Well, let's just say that my lover and I were having fun the night prior with some honey and molasses and other toys...insert an active imagination here. ;)

Whoa... naughtiness :fork_off:

I wonder what else you may find in that tank.

Don't forget to add some KY to increase the lubrication properties of the new low sulfur diesel. :D

LOL

Molasses and honey.....hmmmmm Gottsa give it a try. Though I usually like chocolate syrup and whipped cream.

And exactly how much molasses did your soon to be ex-wife instruct the kid to pour into your fuel tank? If nothing else keep it topped off with full tank of fuel and expect to be changing fuel filters constantly for a few weeks. And with respect to engine damage, worry about injectors and the injector pump before anything else.

Condoms definitely clog filters.

just for *****s and giggles, i just poured a little dark amber blackstrap molasses into a quart of diesel. it mostly went straight to the bottom but some mixed in as it was falling down through it. i can see on the bottom of the bottle that the two are reacting with each other. i have to leave for work in a few, so im gonna let it sit and see what happens with it overnight.

LOL. I think I had the unsulfured molasses.

reminds me of a funny pic:

http://www.spunkydollars.com/images/notmykids.jpg

^^^ this is why im happy my kid is female.

I am unmarried, so no harm done there.

The injectors will probably get kinda gunky. Damn.

Great. Can you report your findings back here tomorrow? I am not doing anything else to my car until I hear your report.

That is just too cute.

I hope that pic was photoshopped!

I don't know about molasses in the fuel tank, but corn syrup in the crankcase is a classic enviro-terrorist method for halting construction equipment.

and just how would you know that? i always just slice the tires. :D

Interesting consequences!
 

So if I understand this correctly, you fooled around and next morning had a four-year-old? That'll teach you! :D :D :D

Did I tell you about the time I stuck a running water hose up the tailpipe of my Dad's Chevy?

Good luck on a D9!

Sugar in tank on myth busters
 

I saw a myth busters episode in which they added a bunch of sugar to a GAS tank and it didn't seem to effect the engines preformance. Now this wasn't molasses and it wasn't in diesel, but maybe its relevant becasue molasses is mainly sugar.

Hey Jeremy-
Did your daddy spank you for that water hose mischief? 'Course these days if a kid is spanked, someone does jail time for it, so nevermind.
That picture of the boys and the white paint! OMG!:fork_off: I do not know how parents manage these days! I'm so lucky that I just have a big dog!

Here is a guarantee!
 

It is guaranteed that sugar, syrup, molasses or any other sugar product that gets into an engine will totally end the useful life of the engine. Of course it has to be ingested by the engine. If it sinks to the bottom and the fuel system can't pick it up for a while, maybe say even a long while, eventually it will. With a carb it will definetly get into the engine. With fuel injection, I think there is a good possiblity that the fuel filters and ther injectors themselves would stop up, thereby causing the engine to stall before it was ruined. But if sugar ever gets into the combustion area, it's history.

Don't they have a "morning after pill" for this???:D

Edward Abbey's "The Monkeywrench Gang" is the classic book on that subject! After reading it you'd want to root for the bad guys. Just WHO are the bad guys anyway?;)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Monkey_Wrench_Gang

I've got to totally agree with you Junqueyardjim. If sugar enters the combustion chamber----> carmel

um...yeah, i was mainly joking.

what's the downside?
 

And if you don't drain and clean it out, what's the downside? Probably everyhere from nothing happening to major engine overhaul time.

Which is the bigger concern to you? That you'd waste your time and money cleaning it out when you didn't need to, or that you'd spend your time and money overhauling the engine because you shoulda cleaned it out?

If it were my car, I'd just grumble a lot while I was cleaning it out so I could laugh about it later (and tease my son about it when he's older :) I'd also count my blessings that I knew about it before I ever started the car.

You might be able to fool some of the people some of the time. But you can't fool all the people all the time.

I'm not buying that story. Don't ask me why......:D

Be sure to post a picture of the fuel tank after it's removed!!!!

is their a such thing as an 86 SDL?

Yes. Checked that already.

Sounds like your kid took it too literally when someone told him diesels are "slow as molasses" ... :D

One of my favorite books of all time. I think I've read it 3 times so far :D

lol i did the water hose thing when i was little too lol.

Sugar is C12H22O11, the H and the O are in 2 to 1 proportions as H2O, heat will evaporate the H20 which will leave you with C, the black gooey substance carbon. Take a spoonful of sugar and burn it, see what you have left and decide how much of that you want in your engine. I would not take a chance with it , drain and clean your tank.

well i tried to take pics of the little test i did, but trying to get clear pics seemed nearly impossible. so i will describe it.....about 2 tablespoons of blackstrap molasses into a quart or so of diesel.
it initially sank for the most part, but you could see some suspended within the diesel. i could also see that the two were reacting as it sat there, initally i thought it was from moving/handling the bottle. so i sat it over night to see what happens. today was a different story. it looked as if the molasses was smoking within the diesel. from every angle i could see a expanded greyish/whitish area starting at the molasses going up into the diesel. there was definitely something happening, and i would think that either the water within the molasses was mixing into the diesel or another part of the molasses was reacting. i assume the sugars would remain heavier and stay on the bottom of the jug.
then as i poured it out, the molasses was definitely thicker and much harder to clean out. i poured in a little fresh diesel and shook it up pretty good, but the molasses just sloshed around, never really letting go of the bottle.
if you havent already cleaned out your tank, i would do so immediately. i might also remove it and clean the h3ll out of it. i could just imagine what this would do to and IP if it made it past the filters. or sank to a low point in the fuel line and caused some cavitation and severe headache when trying to remove it then.

Take a look at the originator's profile. This statement is worth noting:

Vehicles:
I don't drive or have a car. Damn.

I think that all you kitchen table chemists have been had!!! Don't knock yourself out with those "sweet diesel" experiments!!!

I think we have an internet troll! http://tinypic.com/68ymhs.jpg

In the garage near the car?
 

or was the car outside, or perhaps in the car? I suspect it's a ***** to get the molasses of the MB-tex.:D

Chris

sugar wont disolve in gasoline. Pouring it in the tank will have the same effect as sand it will just plug the fuel filter at best.

You want to destroy a fuel system? Don't use sugar, use bleach. It will turn a metal tank, fuel pump/injection pump, fuel lines and injectors to rust from the inside out.

Good one!! :D

Press "ANY" key to continue...?
 

You were having this fun in the garage...?
Or was the car parked in the bedroom that night? :silly:
Do you have a "Drive through" window?
Hey, how the heck does B.K. expect us to Drive through that little tiny window anyways? Car is kinda big for that, and do they want it in their restaurant..? :silly:
Just got a message here, that says, "Press "ANY", key to continue"
Where the hell is the "ANY" key on this thing? :confused: