Petrol in Diesel Tank

Submitted: Saturday, Jun 12, 2004 at 22:26
ThreadID: 13715 Views:16372 Replies:8 FollowUps:5
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Earlier today I put 40 litres of ULP (Unleaded) into the main tank of my 100 Series Diesel, just before heading out of town for a 4 hour trip.

As I left the servo in the city I switched to the main tank (out of habbit as I always start consuming any new fuel to make sure it's OK) I drove 2 KMS before the engine began to feel down on power and noticed idling 200rpm underneath normal. Just as I managed to pull over to a carpark the engine stalled.

Having realised that it might have been the fuel (and at this point just thinking it might have been dodgy diesel) I checked the lines which were all fine so flicked over to the SUB tank. Managed to get it running again after a few cranks and activating the manual fuel pump.

Drove back to the servo on the SUB tank and found the diesel bouser was of an entirely different in shape/style to the other pumps and didn't fit into my category of a "pump" when doing a quick scan of the options, looked more like a wheelie bin really. Leaded and premium were clearly marked, I'd say I chose ULP as it was nearest in price to diesel and I had just assumed thru a process of elemination that I must have finally stumbled along diesel. Not the case. Did the usual "pay for the Diesel" to the the cashier but he didn't notice it either.

Realising the main tank now composed of 25 litres of Diesel and 40 litres of ULP I consulted post 12124 and post 5824 to work out what to do with the 5 part diesel to 8 part ULP. The posts tended to explain the most you could get away with was 7:3 when temperature below freezing, tho 11:1 being the normal ratio used when needing to to stop diesel freezing. Temp's around here vary from 10-24.

I drained out 30 litres from the bottom of the tank and kept in container to creep into the unleaded car over time - diesel floats on petrol so assume this is richer in ULP than Diesel. To check I then drove for 2 KLM and found that it ran a little better but there was still way too much ULP in the mixture, so rather than stall it just ran groggy (clearly wasn't injecting much diesel).

I drained a further 30 litres which really all I can do is use for degreaser, leaving about 5 litres in the tank (comprising of 3.5 litres of ULP and 1.5 litres of diesel). Added 65 litres of diesel giving a 20:1 ratio. Main tank runs fine, you can't tell there's 3.5 litres of ULP in the tank.

In hindsight perhaps I could have only drained the first 30 litres (leaving 21 litres of ULP and 9 diesel) and simply added 65 litres of diesel to this (1 part ULP to 5 part diesel), however I wasn't keen to mix up what would could potentially be 95 litres of degreeser.

Might change the fuel filter once the ULP has been exhausted.

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