A friend of mine at work got a call from his daughter at the gas station. The tank was near empty and she went to fill it up, but by accident she filled it with 10 or so litres of Diesel.

The problem was resolved, but it brought up some interesting discussion.

So, just curious, what would you do in that same situation? If it makes any difference, this car had EFI.

 

That's a lot of diesel. Does it run?

 

This happened a few months ago and everything's OK. Luckily his daughter didn't try driving after she put the diesel in.

 

I would have the car towed home and siphon the diesel out of the tank into a diesel can. Hopefully your friend had another car that ran on diesel so it wouldn't be wasted. I guess you could always give it to a friend with an old truck; however, the diesel was probably contaminated by the leftover gas in the tank. I guess you could always run it in your mower. I put old fuel into my mower. It will burn pretty much anything.

 

I would have drained the tank, which is probably what he did. I've seen it happen more with big gasoline powered bobtail trucks. The driver assumes it's a big truck therefore they fill it with diesel.

 

it also makes good bug and tar remover

 

I'm curious as to how this happened as the nozzles on diesel pumps are larger in diameter than those on gasoline pumps precisely so the diesel nozzle won't fit into the opening at the top of the gas tank filler neck. It's designed this way just to prevent what your friend's daughter did.

I don't know if the regulations are the same in Canada, but I would assume they are. If they are, and if the opening at the top of the tank had not been punched out or removed, the only way she could have put diesel in the tank was by holding the nozzle the entire time as it would not have been possible to insert the nozzle into the filler neck more than maybe 1/2 inch. With that small a length inserted, there is no way the nozzle would have supported itself and allowed use of the hold-open latch (assuming it's allowed in your area) as anyone who pumps gas normally does. Also, a fair amount of fuel should have spilling back out of the filler neck and onto the ground.

At this point, before than maybe more than a few drops of diesel had trickled in, the daughter should have noticed something wasn't right.


The short way of saying this is that, standing at the pumps at a gas station, one has to try really hard to accidentally put diesel fuel into a modern gas tank that is meant to take regular gasoline.

 

Not to argue, but for the sake of discussion, I allways thought that the diesel nozzles were larger too. According to a quick search, I've found that this might not allways be true. In the thread below, it mentions "truck stops" and smaller refueling stations could be different. Around my neck of the woods the diesel nozzles are green in color. If they have a different size or not I can't confirm. One poster also mentions an adapter for use. Why?

http://www.bimmerfest.com/forums/sho...d.php?t=466841

I can only say..that chit happens. Sometimes in large quanties.

 

I did this once....

My old Kharmann Ghia was prone to breaking the rubber fuel line below the tank. One night I came out of my work to find a huge pool of gas around the car. I pulled the tank, patched the line, and my manager said there were gas cans in the shed for the lawn equip. He grabbed a generic can, gave it to me, and I poured the 1 - 1.5 gallons in the can into the Ghia. Started right up, but started knocking really bad. Sounded horrible.....like someone hitting the block with a hammer. He then said "Oh, that might've been diesel for the tractor."

I drove the car a couple of blocks to a gas station. I had to stand on the brakes and pop the clutch to kill it even with the ignition switched off.

Filled it up with gas and started it up. After a bit, it sounded better and I drove off. Didn't seem to do any permanent damage as the car ran fine after that....

This was in a '69.5 Ghia.....Dunno about a modern car....

 

This goes back to the original introduction of unleaded fuel in the mid-70s. So that people would NOT put leaded fuel, which was always a few cents per gallon cheaper than unleaded, into cars that had catalytic converters and thus required unleaded fuel in order not to harm them, new cars were fitted with smaller-diameter openings at the tops of their fuel filler necks. This way, a nozzle for leaded fuel could not be put into the neck of a car that required unleaded.

"Adapters," which were just little cylinders with a larger opening at one end for the leaded fuel nozzle and a smaller opening at the other to fit into the unleaded-car's filler neck, were available. Other times, people just took a big screwdriver and chopped out the filler neck restriction on their new car so they could put in leaded gas.

Here's one at Amazon:

 

I'm old enough to remember that too. But the guys in the beamer post are talking about late model cars..no?

I 've heard enough of these fuel mixing stories that something is out of whack. I guess peaple are peaple..and not perfect.

 

Well its a whole lot better than gasoline in a diesel tank

 

Yes, I think what they're talking about is wanting to put diesel fuel into their new car using the "old style" nozzles they find at some truck stops. If I'm reading things correctly...

 

Not to argue, but it's not really much better. Diesel will pre-ignite very badly in a gasoline engine causing terrible knock that will crack pistons and ruin bearings. In a diesel engine, the fuel isn't injected into the chamber until the piston is at almost TDC, and then it is only a small amount to start the auto ignition. After that has started, the rest of the fuel is injected to continue the power cycle burn.

 

cmon this story cant be true....a daughter (or son) filling up the tank ?? before bringing the car home unheard of !!!

 

My daughter once actually filled her (now ex-) boyfriend's Toyota Camry with about 10 gallons of diesel before the station attendant stopped her. She called me & I towed the car to my house and used an old Holley electric fuel pump to pump the diesel into gas cans. Then I filled it up with premium gas, but it wouldn't start- since turning on the ignition back at the station had activated the electric fuel pump and put diesel fuel into the fuel lines. So I removed the fuel filter and drained the lines as much as possible. I still had to use ether to get it started. Once it fired, it ran terribly and kept trying to stall. I had to keep the throttle open to keep it running, so I just hit the nearest state highway and drove about a 1/2 hr out then turned around and came back. By then it was running fine. She took it back to his house & never said a word. He never knew, lol, but what a pain in the butt!

 

Yep, I thought the same thing when my daughter did it. I checked the pump - which was a combined gas/diesel unit with separate hoses (green for diesel, black for gas). Both nozzles had the same diameter. I mentioned this to the attendant, who just shrugged.

 

FWIW, in OK there are a few E85 pumps which have a yellow pump nozzle. We also have CNG; however, I think those filling stations use special equipment since the pressures are so high.

 

Back in the day, we used to drain the converters and enlarge the hole in the filler neck to run leaded

 

I am ashamed to say I once put 5 gal diesel in a GMC gas pickup. Pumps were just painted and not labeled! (not public pumps)
Filled it the rest of way with gas. Smoked, ran rough. Filled it everytime it got a quarter low and it cleared up.

 

The diesel nozzles for cars at "regular" gas stations are similar in size to the nozzles used for unleaded gasoline, just a bit larger in diameter so ou can't stuff them into an unleaded tank.
These nozzles fit into cars, especially modern European cars, that use diesel.

Older diesel cars, like 220D Mercedes and 350 Olds diesels, use the "regular" size gasoline filler, like our pre-unleaded cars would (back in the old days, people were expected to be able to put the correct fuel in their cars without "extra help").

Larger diesel trucks use a fuel nozzle that's about an inch, maybe an inch and a quarter, in diameter - you could never fill a 200 gallon tractor-trailer tank in reasonable time through one of those tiny car nozzles.

My 1990 GMC has a filler opening large enough to accept the "big truck" nozzle, so I look for the stations with the bug nozzles - they can make a ten gallon top-off take a bit more than a minute, and make a big difference when filling a 35 gallon tank.
Drivers of TDIs, etc, on the other hand, look for stations with the smaller nozzle, or they have to use an "adapter" (read: "plastic paper towel roller").

As for the "diesel-in-gas / gas-in-diesel" question: as has been mentioned, if you've got a little diesel in your gas, you can hold the throttle open and drive it out.
If you've got a little gas in your diesel, though, you've got to bleed the entire injector system and replace an expensive fuel filter. Big PIA.

- Eric

 

I put hydrazine in my VW once. It shot flames out the exhaust pipe.

 

I remember British truckers and farmers adding gasoline to their diesel when we had exceptionally cold weather (don't laugh all you Canadians and northern states residents), it helped prevent fuel waxing and up to 5% seemed to do no harm.

This was back in the '70s, diesel fuel was cruder than today, and I dare say the engines could live with contaminated fuel better than a modern tight tolerance common rail unit.

Roger.

 

I've run my truck on kerosene (parafin to you lot) in very cold weather for short periods - runs fine, mileage and power are slightly reduced.
For long term, it'd probably lead to increased cylinder wear because of decreased lubricity, and if you're in a normally cold area, the local fuel probably has adequate anti-waxing agents anyway.

- Eric

 

Eric - Lubricity - my new word for the day!
In Bermuda the hose handle for diesel is black and there is a locking pin you have to remove in order to grab the handle. That makes you think twice. There is a red hose handle for a mix of gas and oil, used for two stroke motorcycles.
The regular gas hose handle is green here. That causes some interesting moments when I go to the US where diesel handles are green, which of course I instinctively grab first.

 

i wonder if they cut off their fingers so they wouldn't get frost bite

 

Good question about the different nozzle sizes. I asked the guy again and he said his daughter just held the nozzle at the tank inlet and filled it up with 10L... It took a bit of time for her to realise that what she was doing was WRONG!

I don't think she actually tried to run the engine, and in the end they had the car towed to a garage where they drained the tank and filled it up with gas.

A lot of the talk at work was whether or not they had to clean out the tank, flush out the fuel system, etc. To be honest, I didn't put too much thought in it and just assumed that if you drained the tank to empty and filled it with gas, the leftover diesel would be pretty harmless, at least for a tank's worth. That's what the mechanic did for my friend and he had no complaints.

If the car was run that way I could imagine a fuel line flush and a filter replacement would also be in order.

 

Was there a point to this comment?

And how do frostbite or self-mutilation relate to reducing the viscosity and increasing the volatility of fuel in cold weather?

- Eric

 

Nevermind

 

I've seen diesels run on paraffin with a bit of engine oil added, they smoked a lot but ran ok.
No doubt the engines wore out faster but it was used in old plant and trucks so I guess that wasn't a concern.

Winter diesel is sold in the colder months, nowadays with roughly half the cars sold in the UK have an oil burner under the hood diesel fuel quality has vastly improved. However back in the day a truck that filled up in southern England might end up in Scotland with summer diesel in the tank, and I've never come across a farmer who wouldn't save a penny if he could.

Roger.