What about Kero?
 

I was driving back from Summit Point West Virginia (cool motorcycle race with a friend) when I stumbled upon a "Sheetz." Well, besides having excellent sandwiches, they had Kero at the pump. A mere 98 cents a gallon. Now, correct me if I'm wrong, or stone me if I'm "stupid," but can my 300D run on Kero with no ill effect?

Why would they have corn syrup out at a pump ? OH, kEro,,, not Karo... never mind .....

Stone YOU ? boy , yall sure punish foolish questions hard up their in NJ, you need to move further south where people are a bit more laid back.... :D Greg

Kerosene shares many properties with jet fuel, and jet fuel shares many properties with diesel fuel...so I don't see why not, offhand...a lubricity additive might be a good idea, though.

Just my $.02...

Were the road taxes included in that price? If not it would not be legal to fill up with it.

I thought the Kero was Kerosine, if I'm mistaken, Heating Oil number 1, aka, a form of Diesel? And the price was under a buck, including taxes.

Randall,

The Warden is correct. Kerosene is similar to diesel fuel, but is lighter. Theoretically you can run straight kerosene in a diesel engine, but you have to add lubrication or it will destroy the engine after a while.

Kerosene, however, is frequently added to diesel in the winter months as an anti-gel agent. It helps to thin out the waxes and lower the freezing point. An interesting bit of info I found regarding "Diesel Guard", the winter additive that some stations use, boasts it can provide improved cold temperature operability equaling up to a 70% blend of No.1 (Kerosene). This statement may be misleading. It seems to infer 70% Kero and 30% diesel, but I feel it actually means the reverse mixture.

I'll look on the web... I found a research site about a year ago dealing on this subject. A college research team ran a diesel Kenworth for something like two days straight on pure Kerosene #1 and some mixture of 2-cycle oil for lube with no ill effects to the motor. I'll try to find the site again and post a link.

Gee, remember when diesel was under $.90 / gal ??? Seems like years ago....

MB manual says no more than 50% kerosene, and only in cold weather. Sorry, but it will eat your injection pump from lack of lubricity if you run it straight, and will result in a serious power loss due to lack of density (its lighter per gallon). You will also have starting problems due to the lower viscosity and greater leak-back in the pump plungers.

These are the same resons you cannot run gasoline in an MB diesel -- short term it works fine except for low power and possibly excess heat of combustion, but it is nearly impossible to get the car started once the pump is full of gasoline.

Peter

I don't think K1 dispensed from service station pumps has had federal and state road use taxes applied to it.

A couple of years ago I got lost while dropping off a friend in an unfamiliar neighboorhood. I was very low on fuel and ended up having to buy 3 gallons of K1 to get me back to my local fuel sources. The car (71 220D) ran just fine on the K1 but as I recall it was a little noiser and did not have as much power.

I always thought that K1 was pretty much the same as Diesel #1 but I'm not really sure where I got this impression.

Tim

Since I've had the dubious privilege of examining environmental samples for fuel contamination, I can assure you that kerosene and #1 fuel oil are not the same. Kerosene is a much smaller molecular weight range fuel, and will actually evaporate from an open container, alibet slowly.

#1 diesel is "wider cut" than #2 -- it has more of the lighter hydrocarbons in it -- that is, more of the heavy end of gasoline -- and less of the heavy end of crude oil. #1 ranges, if I remember correctly, from C 10 to C 25, with the main components in the c12-16 range.

#2 diesel is basically straight crude oil with the light (C12 and less) hydrocarbons boiled off and anything heavier (C30 and up) left behind. The main components are C 14-C17 linear hydrocarbon.

Kerosene is C8 to C 16, nothing any heavier.

They don't smell alike, either, at least to me!

Peter