Resurrection

[Administrator]

I have a friend who is the senior marine tech at a local marina. He recently shared with me this story:

A near-derelict boat with an A4, which had sat on the hard for about six years, was recently purchased, and the new owner asked him to get the engine up and running. When my friend first entered the boat, he found what I suppose was rain water " up to the bottom of the carburetor."

He then:

• Drained the water from the boat.
• Confirmed that the engine was not seized.
• Replaced the oil with diesel fuel.
• Charged the battery.
• Started the engine. After a few sputters, it ran!
• Ran it for a few minutes.
• Replaced the diesel fuel with oil.
• Ran the engine again to confirm function.

He didn't even bother to change the fuel.

Obviously, there is more to do before the new owner sails off into the sunset, but nevertheless, it's quite a testament to the engine.

As an aside, the marina where my friend works is holding another A4, pulled out of a boat and replaced by a diesel. Don asked about buying it. They wanted thousands. I guess they know what they have.

I had never heard of the "diesel fuel as oil" trick. Has anyone else?

Bill

[Dave Neptune]

Bill, I have done the diesel fuel in the oil many times doing resurrection's. The D/F lubes fine for light loads and really get the goo and krap knocked loose. Sometimes the D/F would come back out tainted and others like thicker gooh. Using diesel was quite common for cleaning engines before a teardown when detergent oils were not common.

Dave Neptune

[edwardc]

I used to use kerosene to flush out a watered engine. I guess that's close to diesel. It helped thin out the milkshake goo.

[Dave Neptune]

Ed, the diesel fuel has a bit more lubricity for the injectors is about all that's different. The diesel "flush" is also very good for unsticking valves and lifters, especially the hydraulic type.

Dave Neptune

[sastanley]

I have not personally used diesel fuel before, but it does seem like the detergents in the fuel would be useful in doing what Dave Neptune suggests.

Sounds good to me!

[Mo]

Heard of it.

Every "guru" has his tricks...I've heard of it before and the last time I saw it done was in the 70's....that guy would be about 100 yrs old now and long gone. He only ran the engine for "90 seconds" and shut it down. "Witchy Jim" was his name...there wasn't anything he couldn't fix or make. Fuel, that's another issue...I don't know how fuel 6 yrs old started the engine. I remember having tanks of fuel "I mean thousands of gallons" in the military that had to be sent off due to being too old....couldn't blow the stuff up if you tried.

[Mo]

I used to use kerosene to flush out a watered engine. I guess that's close to diesel. It helped thin out the milkshake goo.

A little bit of trivia: I know we were talking diesel in place of oil but here goes...

Kerosene is even more refined than diesel...in the high arctic we'd run it as fuel in diesel vehicles so they wouldn't ice up and quit...talking in the -60's ...windchill -84....and when it's that cold, blowing snow etc...yep, the wind chill does make a difference....the difference between running engines (mainly running trucks and generators for buildings) and freezing to death. There were times we dumped anywhere from a litre of methalhydrate to a gallon into a pickup tank so they wouldn't ice up....totally against all dogma on diesels, but if you wanted a running truck or gen-set that was what had to be done.

Kerosene or diesel...actually pretty close.

[Skywalker]

Another kero story.

1979, bought a Triumph TR 6. Loved that car. Would love another...anyway

A friend of mine's father had a small antique car shop. Restored everything from old Model Ts, 50s vintage T birds, old trucks, you name it.

When I picked up the TR, he told me to drain the oil, run it at idle with kero for a few minutes. Drain the kero, do it again. Got some real gunk out of there.

Skywalker

[Dave Neptune]

Fwiw

Yes kerosene and diesel are close however the refining out of the paraffin makes the kerosene far closer to what fuel our "sky diesels" or as more commonly called jet engines.

I have a buddy that could not get diesel in the so pacific a long time ago so off to the airport for some JP-4. He called Perkins and they said to dump a qt of oil in each gallon of the JP-4 and things would be fine. He motored his Cal cruising 35 all the way back fro Quaduline, where he was stationed as a Radar guy. He got there for his tour of duty in the boat too, this was while he was working for Ratheon.

Dave Neptune

[Mo]

Yes kerosene and diesel are close however the refining out of the paraffin makes the kerosene far closer to what fuel our "sky diesels" or as more commonly called jet engines.

I have a buddy that could not get diesel in the so pacific a long time ago so off to the airport for some JP-4. He called Perkins and they said to dump a qt of oil in each gallon of the JP-4 and things would be fine. He motored his Cal cruising 35 all the way back fro Quaduline, where he was stationed as a Radar guy. He got there for his tour of duty in the boat too, this was while he was working for Ratheon.

Dave Neptune

I believe it, one only has to smell jet fuel and it smells like kerosene. When I did medevacs in the arctic we had to resupply our refuel stations for helicopter response. Communities were so far apart, hunting camps etc, that we had landing areas with up to 30 forty-five gallons drums of JP5. Many times we'd pick up a pt in the boonies, head for a refuel depot (just a landing spot with drums of fuel standing on the tundra), refuel, and head to a fixed wing medevac or hospital depending on which direction we headed out on. Many times we'd land and refuel just to get to some place. You would not believe the amount of JP5 hanging around the arctic. We'd open the little cap a shine a light in...if there was water it would be easily seen on the bottom, easily because they never sat level. We never moved a drum until we checked to see if it was water free. Back when I was in the Military, we use JP5 on ship for helo's. JP5 has a little higher flash point.

[sastanley]

A diesel will run on ATF too. When I replaced the fuel pump in my 1st wife's 1984 Nissan Sentra Diesel when we were teenagers, my step-father said to buy a quart of ATF and set it next to the pump with a short piece of hose to prime the pump..it was a lot easier than trying to prime the pump, injectors, etc. from the tank at the other end of the car. That is exactly the same thing we tell folks here when running a small aux tank to rule out fuel problems.

I just let it sit there and run for about 30 minutes because as a 19 year old kid, a car running on a quart of ATF was the coolest thing I'd seen at the time.

A friend and I ran K-1 in his brother's furnace for about a week one winter, when the parents went off on vacation and 'forgot' to fill the oil tank. We kept the kids warm with the K-1 until they got back to fill their oil tank.

Here is an non-authoritative link I found on the internet that runs on a bit, but does some explaining between the fuels we are discussing, but Dave Neptune has already mentioned some of these things with different paraffin levels, etc.

http://toad.net/~jsmeenen/fuel.html