Petrol Alternatives

[FarmerPug]

I seen a Grey Ferguson tractor that runs on the TVO setup, some petrol and heater oil mix, how hard would it be for me to run my suzuki on a mixture of petrol and heater oil like the ferguson. It wont be used on the road so it wont be illegal. But is it physically or chemically possible

[jasper5]

The heating oil is red diesel, you can't run a petrol engine off diesel or a mixture of heating oil and petrol.

[steve_earwig]

Gah! Penny drops I thought red diesel was proper diesel with some die in, the heating oil here certainly isn't and people don't run their cars on it in the winter. Oops! It's almost twice the price here too

[steve_earwig]

Hold on, what about poteen?

[FarmerPug]

do you mean pochin drink.
How come the ferguson can run on a mixture of petrol and heating oil its a proper wee petrol engine with a distributor cap, and spark plugs

[Doggy]

Well, I was reading the (hand-typed) workshop manual for a Morris 8, belonging to the guy who welded up my eggsauce.....

Cubic Capacity 848cc
Power output 21 bhp (IIRC)
Compresssion Ratio 4.6 : 1

Apparently, it will run on just about anything....

(Never seen a side valve engine in bits before either).

[jasper5]

Well, I was reading the (hand-typed) workshop manual for a Morris 8, belonging to the guy who welded up my eggsauce.....

Cubic Capacity 848cc
Power output 21 bhp (IIRC)
Compresssion Ratio 4.6 : 1

Apparently, it will run on just about anything....

(Never seen a side valve engine in bits before either).

Ah! side valve engines I started my apprenticeship working on side valve engines....amongst other things

[FarmerPug]

whats my suzuki got? could it run on such fuels?

[jasper5]

whats my suzuki got? could it run on such fuels?

Your car is an overhead valve engine....side valve went out with the Ark.

What you should try....and you do so at your own risk....is to drain off the carb on the Suzuki and fill the carb with the stuff that the tractor runs on and see if it will run on it.

If it doesn't then drain out the carb and continue using petrol....it might misfire a bit at first until the other mixture goes through.

Filling only the carb will stop you screwing up the whole fuel system if the petrol/heating oil mix doesn't work.

[FarmerPug]

ill wait till i get the engine in. but thanks for the advice

[steve_earwig]

I'd think you have some chance if it was injected but with carbs I have a feeling the quantity of diesel/heating oil/pig's urine would need to be so small it wouldn't be worth the effort.

[Busman]

TVO was tractor vapourising oil. It was largley parifin but was sold ready mixed. You needed two fuel supplies to the carb as the engine needed to be warmed up on neat petrol then switched to tvo. I think that the complexity and cost of doing this along with the cost of parifin etc would make it pointless. The whole idea was dropped in favour of diesel engines. If you see another TVO Fergy, you can see the twin tanks in front of the steering wheel. Small for petrol, large for TVO.

[jasper5]

TVO was tractor vapourising oil. It was largley parifin but was sold ready mixed. You needed two fuel supplies to the carb as the engine needed to be warmed up on neat petrol then switched to tvo. I think that the complexity and cost of doing this along with the cost of parifin etc would make it pointless. The whole idea was dropped in favour of diesel engines. If you see another TVO Fergy, you can see the twin tanks in front of the steering wheel. Small for petrol, large for TVO.

That's interesting, good to understand how they worked. Thanks

[FarmerPug]

I seen the tank its basically 1 big tank with a seprtating wall inside, you can see though an indication of this wall and the petrol tank is much smaller

[Welly]

Well, if I can get my 3.75HP Briggs & Stratton mower engine running on neat barbeque lighting fluid then I'm sure you'll manage this