Here in Sweden during the 1950's we use tractors for kerosene and gasoline. There was a tiny little tank for gasoline just for starting. Before shut down, we have to switch a valve and run the engine for a couple of minutes to get gasoline in the carburetor. If forgetting this operation, we have to drain the system from kerosene, fill with gasoline, and start. At that time, the kerosene was much cheaper than gasoline or diesel. The carbon upbuild was tremendous... I dissembled a tractor with carbon in the exhaust system so the passage was as a size of a pencil. /Pelle
A lot of old tractors were kerosene burners. John Deere made a lot of them. Changing back over to gasoline before shutting down also helped burn out some of the carbon. The combustion chamber was larger on kerosene engines and if you wanted to convert to gasoline only you had to braze an iron ring into head of each cylinder to raise the compression.
When converting over to vegetable oil as a fuel and living in a cold winter climate you need to follow the same shut down procedure. Of course, veggie oil won't work in Sweden due to the harshness of your winters. I wonder if mixing the oil with gasoline would help to thin the viscosity? (I'm referring to used veg. oil. Fresh would be cost prohibitive.)
same for italy. there are many who currently operate old kerosene engines lombardini but they simply use gas not kerosene anymore(not produced its called petrolio similar as word petrol in england). the advantage of kerosene, if project farm do not know, is that at higher load the engine stand really cooler than when operating with gasoline,
Many years ago we had a 1960's Plymouth Valiant with a slant 6 engine. We lived in NYC and my father was a new worker for Otis elevator at the time and not at mechanic's pay rate yet. With 3 kids (later 4) money was super tight and I mean super tight. I remember him putting in 36 cents of gas at the pumps sometimes when he was really broke and that happened more than you might think. My folks didn't gamble or drink or have any vices, the starting pay was just low for a family of 5 in the early 70's. Anyhow, Otis elevator company had metal cans of Otis Cleaning Compound that they used for machinery at the time. There were several times that we were out of gas and my Dad had no money and guess what? Pure Otis cleaning compound went into the gas tank and the car started up and got us home. Lol, my Mom and Dad and my younger brothers laugh at it now and talk about how new engines would never start or run on that stuff but then we think about what that cleaning compound may or may not have been made of, and you wonder.......who knows.? Maybe an airplane engine could have run on that stuff, lol. Ahh, I wouldn't trade in those days for anything, we really appreciated what we had and the real time we spent together.
It was probably a chemical like Brakekleen with a high % of naptha, which a car will quite happily run on, and really clean your fuel lines at the same time :)
@@ProjectFarm not good memories being broke in the cold. I think because money was tight growing up, I buy the toys I wanted & wished I had and some I've never used and.others uses a few times. Im.not stingy nor do I deprive myself.of anything
Another great video! Very informative!! My great grandfather had a 1920 Hudson super 6 that he converted so that it would run on 'coal oil' or what today we call Kerosene. He would start it on gasoline until it warmed up and then he turned a valve on the dash so then it would run on kerosene. As in your video, under load the engine would develop an pre-ignition knock. He discovered that by introducing droplets of water into the carburetor, the knocking would stop and the engine would smooth out, so he installed a small tube into the carburetor that was connected to the radiator (no glycol anti-freeze in the 1920's) with a valve in between on the dash and when it started to knock, he just opened the valve a little and the knock stopped. I asked him why he did the conversion and he said the main reason was that gasoline was $.19 a gallon and kerosene was $.03 a gallon! He lived until he was almost 100 and passed a way in 1967 when I was 12. I was lucky to have been a around when he was alive!
@@ProjectFarm Using water with kerosene was actually traditional back in the days of traction engines and before rubber-tyred tractors. Those giant prairie tractors by manufacturers like Rumely Oilpull and Aultman Taylor were sold that way. A book called The Allis Chalmers Story talks about Advance Rumely tractors because AC eventually took over the company in 1931. The book mentions, "The Oilpull engine design used ample quantities of water with the fuel mixture to retard preignition (and the resultant knocking)." They weren't the only manufacturer that did that and this is why those kerosene prairie tractors featured a water tank.
My Grandfather ran a road crew during the Great Depression and he said they ran maintainers, graders, rollers, and other gas equipment on kerosene. One would first use a small gas tank to crank and run till the engine achieved operating temperature then switched to the main fuel tank of kerosene. I still have one of those 2.5 gallon crank tanks. Great video as always. Keep em coming. 👍✌
Back in the day, many John Deere 2cyl tractors had one small gas tank, and one tank for "tractor fuel" which was very similar to kerosene. You had to run on gas until operating temp to get the motor hot to keep the kerosene vaporized properly, and then run on kero the rest of the day. Before shutoff you had to switch back to gas to avoid hard starting. Even on tractors that weren't dual fuel, cheap farmers would cut their gasoline with as much kerosene as they could and still start reliably to save on fuel costs.
Yes John Deere tractor fuel. I think it was green. My old 38 Chevy did fine on kerosene because it was low compression. Had to warm it up on gasoline. In the mid 50s kerosene was about 10 cents a gallon. That changed with higher demand because of jet engines using it. The old Ford model T ran good on moon shine or gasoline.probably would run good on kerosene. Grandma called it coal oil. If you stepped on a nail or something with your bare feet.grandma had your foot in a pan of coal oil. We didn't have electric. She had a 55 gallon drum full for lights. About 1951 we got electric. The adults were trying to turn on the lights in the church.They were on ladders trying to turn on the florescent lights. Someone saw this thing on the wall and flipped it on. The lights came on. Then it was praise the Lord.
Had a guy that had a steep hill going down to the fields. Coming up the hill the tractor front came up and over killing him. His wife was trying to keep the farm going and also was killed on the hill. Remember my dad getting stuck. When he engaged the clutch the front end came up. When you got the old iron wheels stuck you weren't going any where.
Bought a 51 Farmall H once for 200 bucks It had been sitting in a field for many years. It was converted to propane but the remains of the old oil burning system was still there. Saw a Ford tractor with a Funk Engineering kit that allowed you to put a Ford 6 cylinder car engine in it.. Saw a Flat head Ford V8 in one. Took off like a Mustang.
I saw a King of the Hill (animated) show where Hank falls asleep driving a Semi and his friends (Dale, Bill, Boomhauer) take over and get stranded on a mountain-top. They ran out of fuel. In the semi were antiques being transported and some of the antiques were Kerosene lamps. They utilized the kerosene while going backwards down the hill to pop-start the engine and turn around on a semi-runaway runway. It was nice to see this actually tested even though that likely wasn't the reason you did this test. I appreciate all of your work and enjoy every second of your videos. Never stop - seriously, they're gold to all of your fans!
When I was young, me & my dad here in The Philippines also tried kerosene on a motorcycle engine (air cooled engine without a fan) at a certain point engine heat up, almost to an overheat temperature so we cut the ignition off to stop the engine but the engine keeps on running, so we quickly shut off the fuel valve, engine still continues to run till all the kerosene was consumed. You should try to experiment this on what temperature does a kerosene don't need a spark plug & run on its own. I love watching your videos, nice work bro, Keep it up! 👍
Viewers please NOTE carefully: this is a FLATHEAD engine and they have very LOW COMPRESSION ratios so they'll run on just about anything . Not so with an car engine that has OHV's. So, don't expect the results you see here to be applicable to a modern automobile.
I poured about a few cups into a Ninja 650r parallel twin to get me 10 miles. It got me to the store just find under light load. Needed more revs to operate then on normal fuel. Normally I cruise at 80mph a 5k revs.
@@greenidguy9292 Not so much. The term "white gas" is more commonly used for such products as lighter fluid, naptha, Coleman stove fuel or other similar products.
@@williamjones4483 well as a former boy scout many years ago we always used unleaded (white gas) in our Coleman lanterns and stoves. Perhaps it depends on what part of the world you live in as to what "white gas" is.
You have to be one of the meanest, most passive aggressive people I have ever seen making videos!! ... Man, I can't keep a straight face. I actually love your videos with all the extremely useful content! You're the kind of guy I would want to be a close friend with. :) Keep up the great work and keep 'em coming!
Kerosene in the senseof Lamp petroleum or jet engine fuel? In English that gets quite confusing. have seen a few trators to be desinged to start on regular petrol and than lamp oil ( petroleum not petrol)
They also did it was lawn tractors back in the day. They had a split tank, one side was for gas and the other side was kerosene. They did it because Kerosene was so much cheaper to run. They would start the ending on gas and turn the gas off and turn the kerosene on.
Running an engine on a fuel with a lower octane count than needed is problematic. However, it is possible to remedy this problem by injecting distilled water into the manifold. It takes a little time and some experiments to make it work. Water is injected when knocking occur. By heat absorption, when the water droplets turns to vapor, the sudden rise in temperature and, thus, pressure in the combustion chamber will be less and thus limit or remove the knocking. Water injection and combined water and methanol injection, has been used by both the Germans and the allied during WWII and later to prevent knocking. High pressure turbo loading of piston engines in combination with low octane fuel have the the same result as you experienced: knocking. What was found in both WW2 Germany and USA, was that some injection of a 50/50% mixture of distilled water and methanol would allow a higher manifold pressure ~= higher compression above the piston just before ignition without knocking. The above is not perfect English, but I hope it make sense. /John
Until you fu@# up the valve's or worse from putting water even little drops in a hot running engine.. Next ill read you can always just water your gas down if your low and cant get none and have to drive somewhere.. RUclips comments are priceless
Was reading an old Briggs and Stratton repair manual the other day and they used to have a procedure to run their engines on kerosene. The caveat was that you had to start them on gas and then switch them over once the engine was warm (they used a dual-fuel tank setup). Very cool!
I already knew that it would work, since Briggs & Stratton actually had adjustable ignition timing on some of their older engines specifically so they could run on kerosene.
When I was a student (MANY years ago) I had a friend who ran an old car on Paraffin (ok kerosine). It wouldn't actually start on it - he had a detergent bottle full of petrol (ok Gasoline) which he would squirt into the carburetor before starting the car. In those days kerosine was much cheaper than petrol, nowadays it is more expensive.
Here is a video idea - try putting the highest quality fuel in an dirty (uncleaned) engine, run it for some time and see whether it will clean some of the carbon and deposits in the engine Thanks about this episode - great video - very entertaining and informative.
I remember here in Oz, about 50 years ago, farmers were using what was called Power Kerosene in tractors and stationary engines. They had to be started on petrol (gas) and switched over to kero when they reached running temperature.
Back in the 1910's through the early 40's kerosene was used in farm tractors, because it was cheaper than gasoline. They used a different carburetor and had radiator shutters to control the engine temperature and help the engine reach operating temperature. The engine would actually start on gas, warm up and be switched over to kerosene. Advance rumley actually made engines that ran on kerosene alone.
Yes, there were several alternative fuels tried. Kerosene was one of the more common, distillate (undrinkable alcohol), was another. Also propane or LPG as it was called at the time. Kerosene and distillate we're used in the same time frame LPG came later 50's and 60's. Now there's an idea, will a gasoline engine run on propane, without the propane fuel system?
Those tractors needed a bit of oil drained and replaced every day due to kerosene working past the rings and thinning crankcase oil. Earlier farm engines and tractors had total loss lubrication. Those earlier engines also used water from the cooling system to prevent detonation. A carburetor would have three parts; starting and warm up gasoline, kerosene for working, and water to prevent knock.
John deere had water valves on a carburetors that could be opened from the operators position to stop pre-ignition . It used water from the radiator to do this.
Jet fuel is a clear to straw-colored fuel, based on either an unleaded kerosene (Jet A-1), or a naphtha-kerosene blend (Jet B). Similar to diesel fuel, it can be used in either compression ignition engines or turbine engines. Todd, always enjoy your videos keep them coming. I have a suggestion let's try running your go cart on AVgas 100 . Shell global makes it . General repair
Back in the 40s and 50s when I was young my dad had a farmal and a mccormorick deering excuse the spelling tractor both had duel fuel tanks one gas the other kerosene start on gas then switch to kerosene both started with hand crank if you didn't set the spark advance just wright they would backfire and could break your arm
I'm very farmiliar with that style McCormick deering you refer to. Had a Farmall F12 I was working on for a guy once. I forgot to retard the spark. When I hit the hand crank it kicked me pretty hard
That was very interesting. I was told that if you warm up an engine, AFTER starting it on gas, you could change over to kero. You actually started a warm engine on kero. I did not expect that. Thanks for posting this video. It was great. Barry
So back in the day we had "commercial fuel" - somewhere between gasoline and kerosene. Many I-H truck engines (and others) had a 7 1/2 : 1 compression ratio and ran fine on commercial fuel. They'd also run all day on #1 kerosene. But you'd have to give them a "water tune" once in while to knock out the carbon. Happier on gasoline, but more costly and the mileage suffered a bit. 50/50 gasoline and commercial fuel was great was great for low speed tractor engines. Now with Cali CARB killing many diesels (w/o urea), gas tractors may come back ... So learning to mix your own fuel may become a deal again ... Just another tuning tool :D
K05 T4R we have ethanol free gas where I live and it's about 75-80 cents more per gallon. Although it wouldn't be practical to do for a V8, I use a simple ethanol separator for making fuel for all my small engines. Basically I add a couple drops of food coloring to a quart of water and vigorously mix it into 5 gallons of gas that contains ethanol, wait for it to settle and siphon off the gas until I get down to the colored water. Because ethanol is hydrophilic, meaning it attracts moisture, all the ethanol is absorbed into the colored water and when separated all you have left is straight gasoline. I've seen this done on a larger scale doing 100s of gallons at a time but that wouldn't be practical for me.
When I was training to operate emission test equipment,we were told by the trainer that in our state captiol the area where emission testing was required ended at the centerline of a street,there fore if a person lived on one side of the street emission test required,other side no test.Unbelieveable unless you remember this is Washington State then it makes perfect sense.
Used Lawnmower Salesman . " This here mower is the opportunity of a lifetime" Customer " I know, I can hear it knocking" Imagine Mr Haney and Oliver Wendell Douglas in scene!
Thanks for sharing...well for almost 29 years I've used a mix of 250ml Kerosene to every 25 litres of petrol and I can tell you the engine runs very efficiently, smoother acceleration with slight 2-3% increase in overall performance
Thanks for this video I really enjoyed it. I can tell that a lot more effort went into this video compared to some of your other videos. You're doing very well and have been watching you for a while, I enjoy every video!
Thank you! Yes, I'm investing nearly twice the time and a lot more funding as well. Viewers deserve it and I'm also trying to demonstrate to my children a saying my father often said to me while growing up... "Anything worth doing, is worth doing right". Thanks again!
You should show the safety data sheets for gasoline next to the data sheets for your experimental fuel, so we have something to compare the kerosene values, etc, to! Otherwise, great video!!!
Kero is significantly safer. Flash point is much higher, vapor ignition is never an issue, and it's not even very nasty if you get it on your skin. Kero is really quite good stuff. Unfortunately it's more costly than motor fuels. Most engines that can run on kero can run diesel instead, which is cheaper most of the time. Many things that run on Jet-A can also run on good kerosene. And Jet-A will work in kerosene devices. Sometimes useful.
I once made a 1973 VW beetle run on kerosene on a bet. On my first run, it would stall under load but ran better once it was warmed up. My solution, I ran a copper coil around the exhaust manifold , and the fuel would flow through it, warner kerosene seemed to work better. It was dangerous but a low budget solution to win several cases of beer. The bet was to drive it around a city block 3 times. Won the bet
Most tractors made before 1940 were designed to run on kerosene. Start on gas, warm up then switch over. They also all had a water jet or injection system so that under full load they did not knock. it is said that running same amount of water and kerosene improves fuel efficiency and makes the motor run cooler under full load.
Thanks for doing this! I have heard stories from the early days of driving how a Ford model T would run OK on Kerosene and sometimes that was all you could find. And a friend of mine remembers as a kid in the 1960s he knew of a weird old man in town who ran his 1956 Studebaker on Kerosene to save money. So it can work.
The model T had manual ignition timing and choke, and also pre heated air intake via the manifold, and individual vibrator coils per cylinder, with the distributor on the low voltage side, and could run on battery or magneto. Plus, it was a flathead. It could also run on alcohol.
Great material always, running diesel is tricky unless you have a multi fuel military engine and I'm not sure how much they use those anymore. Diesel requires so much more compression ratio in naturally aspirated engines and cylinder pressure on engines with turbos and/or blowers.
Traveling Monkeys yes but I'd prefer to not run old fry oil through my expensive injection pump or injectors I'd much rather run it through the carburetor on my generator or mix it with some gas to help it burn if it is a possibility
@@ProjectFarm would that be because the compression ratio is decreased and an over all lower operating temperature? - I think everyone answering to this test of yours are frustrated petro chemists that took a wrong vocation in life😅
Kerosene does have a use in V8 engines. I remember back in 1964 i hung out with a good friend when he worked as a mechanic at a gas station. One older man that when he changed his oil & he did it like clockwork. Im not sure if he drained all the oil out or just a couple of quarts & replace them with kerosene but they idled the engine for awhile then drained the oil kerosene mix then replaced it with oil. I do remember that his 1956 era Buick ran ultra quite & ultra smooth it also was about the cleanest engine inside & out. Jimmy was draining the oil & i noticed that the oil looked clean enough that he could have been actually putting oil in instead of draining it that's when he told me what the guy did. After all these years i never forgot & wish i had asked some questions because he had well over 150,000 miles on his car & it looked like hood up on a new car showroom. Whoever bought the car after this man sold it no matter what they paid sure got their money's worth for a 1956 Buick7
I have a few gallons of old kerosene (in unopened cans) that I have no real use for. Based on your video, I'd guess there would be no problem running my power equipment on, say, 10% kerosene mixed into the gas. Opinions? BTW, when you adjusted the carb jet for kerosene, did it have to be richer or leaner for smooth running?
yep back in the days of ww2 and gasoline was short, parrafin was made from coal (not these days , its refined from oil now) and thus was another source of fuel
Most of those engines were also very low compression compared to todays engines. Low compression engine on kero would probably not have the problem with predetonation/pinging as in the video.
Hey there.... was just wondering if you'd like to do a video on different types of spark plugs in your transparent cylinder head to see the different combustion patterns and what not.... notably E3 spark plugs with their unique design.... but also would like to see the comparisons. Let me know... thanks.
This was a great video. Now a big question. Will you consider stepping up your videos to include an old CAR???? I would love to see you run an old car on kerosene!! Like an old metro or Festival. Something small easy to modify.
Back in the early 1980's, we converted a friends old car, an old 1950's British 4 cylinder car, to run on Kerosene. Note that modern Kero is "lighting kerosene" what the old farm tractors ran on in the 1940's etc was a rather different "power kerosene". We disabled the car's original mechanical fuel pump and instead fitted 2 electric fuel pumps with a changeover switch. The main tank was filled with kerosene and small extra tank (located by the drivers legs !) held about 2 litres/half a gallon of petrol (gasoline) used for starting and warming up. We first used 6 feet/2metres of copper fuel line and wrapped it around the exhaust manifold and the exhaust header pipe, then linked it with a Y or Tee piece to the carb's normal fuel inlet. the car ran but "very awfully", so we added another 6 feet/2 metres of copper fuel line pipe, wrapped around the exhaust manifold, and it was much improved. Start the car and get up to speed and warmth on petrol/gasoline, then flick the switch, the first bit of (cold) kero stuck in the short length of fuel line just before the carburettor doesn't burn much and the car farts around and loses speed, but once the pre-heated kero reaches the carb, it burns satisfactorily, although barely so. A substantial kerosene smell was behind the car and we never got tail-gaters, we retarded the ignition slightly (easy with the old points and distributor systems).
Jonny DIY I did it with an outboard motor once, when I emptied the tank, refilled with petrol and finally got it started, everything vanished in that white smoke. :-)
Once again I enjoyed watching the video and the surprising results I honestly didn't think it would work that well. The only kerosene I've used for a different purpose was a blue color. Wonder why that is being the only color they stocked.
gasoline has ethanol. remove the ethanol and do the test ( 6:50 ) how long pure gas runs compared to gas with ethanol. you can find how to remove it on youtube.
Linux & Other Stuff where I live you can buy gas with or without alcohol. The 10% alcohol stuff's energy density is a smidge less than straight gas but it's also cheaper. Moreover assuming it's not a really old motor the alcohol stuff burns cleaner. And is probably better for the engine. I avoid it in small engines because I think leaving an engine overwinter with ethonal might cause problems.
In small engines, leaving the fuel to sit in the carburetor over the winter will result in corrosion. The EPA previously estimated that vehicles run on straight gas will see a difference of 10-15% fuel mileage improvement over vehicles run on E10/E15 when not designed to run on such fuels.
in my experience the difference in fuel mileage between e10 and straight as is much less than 10 percent. Numbers from epa I've seen say about 3 percent. Which matches up with I I observe.
The estimates have been updated over the years as fuel quality has improved. In my car's current configuration, I've seen fuel mileage as low as 28mpg on the highway and as high as 43mpg on the highway. It seems to heavily depend on the fuel quality and the fuel additive package, which varies between summer and winter as well as manufacturers. Vehicles designed to run on pure gasoline will always be more affected than those designed to run on ethanol blended fuels. All vehicles built since the introduction of ethanol blended fuels are intended to run on fuels containing anywhere from 10% ethanol up to 85% ethanol. Obviously, check your owner's manual before dumping E85 into any vehicle as not all vehicles are capable of operating with E85.
A friend of mine almost ran out of gas in front of a supermarket and we put in the tank several bottles of fuel additive for cleaning fuel injectors to make it to the gas station several blocks away. It ran rough but it did run. I believe we used Lucas fuel injector cleaner. Great video.
I'm not sure you're right about that, from what I understand, they are graded by the length of the hydrocarbons. A chemist might be able to correct me!
@@bigcheeses had some dipshit on a jobsite a few uears ago decided to save a couple bucks and filled his salamander with deisel fuel instead of kerosene It ran fine but stunk up the entire building with deisel fumes
@@Dwohman no. Jet fuel is kerosene. They want it to evaporate. Using diesel in jet engines results in polution, incomplete burning. The aviatian diesel engines run on jet fuel , kerosene. Probably because of the gel effect in diesel at low temperatures....
I don’t want to ruin Project Farm’s project ideas but Mighty Car Mods did that with a car on a Dyno tuner and it did nothing. Maybe it would be more beneficial with a smaller engine? I guess he could test it.
That will takes tons of hours of testing. You'll literally have to run engines night and day (tested in fuel injected engines and send off oil samples for analysis). That would only cover nonstop running conditions, which is a lot different than how people use cars (that's extreme duty). And just b/c it says it's synthetic, it's probably not. Group III+ hydrocracked is not syn (although can be very good and similar to group IV if made well).
The lubricity of conventional and synthetic will be the same. The benefit of synthetic oil is in the ability to handle much more heat and in the PPDs. Dirty synthetic will still flow like new synthetic. However, dirty conventional does not flow like clean conventional.
There used to be petrol and paraffin tractors , paraffin is also known as kerosene. Tractors such as the grey Ferguson tractors before getting the Diesel engine ran on petrol and paraffin and on top of the engine they had a tank that was in two sections , the largest section held the paraffin and in the smaller section was the petrol and the tank had a fuel tap on to switch from petrol to paraffin. They were started on petrol and when they were up to operating temperature they switched them to cheaper paraffin / kerosene. Over here in the UK there’s still many of them about and in use on small farms and small holdings to this day. Love your videos. Keep up the good work.
I used to use heavy equipment and cubs diesel fuel on the back of my truck I have ran out of gas before and put three of diesel in my tank the truck did run but not very good the trick to it was the motor had to be hot for it to work but like I say it ran horrible but was enough to give me to a gas station
Gasoline from before the 1940s was only 30 octane so engines back then didnt ping on kerosene. It wasnt until leaded gasoline that we finally had 70 octane gas and higher. New gasoline is spiked by additives and adding in higher octane fluids produced by heating the heavier oil products under very high pressure until they break molecular bonds into smaller chains. The naturally occuring gasoline extracted from distilling crude oil is only 30 octane. The higher octane gasolines allowed for more compression which allows a more efficient burn and more power from smaller engines.
Here in Poland they sell "spiritus", about the same as Everclear maybe. The alcohol percentage is so high that if you leave the cap off it sucks water out of the air and lowers the proof slightly!
another great video sir 👍 Just FYI. Kerosene and diesel require an advancement of the timing to get a complete burn and maximum power. Unfortunately advancing the timing is very hard on the crankshaft, connecting rods, and piston. It's hard on a motor in general. Also as you already found out, kerosene doesn't like a cold motor. Once the head is hot, it will self ignite with very little help from the spark plugs. Usually a much higher compression ratio is used in diesel motors for this reason. You can artificially increase the compression ratio by adding forced induction. Now that I think about it, a gas blower hooked to the go cart would be cool. 😁 Water/methanol injection would be cool as well. We used to use cheap windshield washer fluid for this. 😀
I remember as I was growing up in England we had a Petter genset that ran on TVO or tractor vaporizing oil which was kerosine and it started on petrol and started with a hand crank. It produced I think 32volts.
I did this once when I was little, It worked great when mowing grass, I put an upwards stack on it and it made smoke rings when running. Just a short story....
The old N series Ford tractors had versions that ran on both with 2 tanks. You just flipped a lever on the dash that switched from PETROL to kerosene. I think it actually had 3... One for water... it used it to help cool while running the kerosene. They also had one that just ran kerosene.
This one really fooled me. I was always under the impression that Kerosene and diesel were more similar than kerosene and gas and that since you couldn't get the engines to run on diesel that the same thing would happen.
Kerosene is somewhere in between gas and diesel but has a great fuel purity and is very resistent to jellying so that means that once you warm it up it can burn in a gas engine. It can work in a diesel too but as good because the fuel it not enough viscous and that means over time it will seize pumps and clean away the oil in the cylinders. A small percentage of kerosene in diesel will help lower your jellying temperature a lot tho
Great video. I also wouldn't have thought the engine would run on kerosene, but it certainly did. Have you tried kerosene in a diesel engine? (I'm working my way through your videos one or two at a time). Of course finding small diesel powered pieces of equipment isn't as easy or affordable as getting old mowers, especially since there's a chance for catastrophic failure while experimenting and operating in a way not intended, so I understand. I'd think it would be a closer match than kerosene to gasoline, but I could be wrong. Anyway, tanks for another fun experiment.
The octanes of paraffin is 0 .To use engine this fuel must have compression ratios 4 to 1 or lower. For higher compression we have preignition and knocking and engine will be destroyed for sure. Years ago were in Cyprus such engines .I had three. I gave the 2 and kept 1.The lower the compression, the lower the efficiency, so they stopped using them as antieconomic since fuel is expensive. I HOPE Nelly i satisfied you.I am Cypriot 73 Y.old with BSC on Physics.
I love the fact that he always looks like he is about to laugh when doing the presentation and the analysis. Trying to be serious about a, seemingly absurd question, but a fun and educational subject. Seriously though, this is the best education and entertainment at the same time :D
@Peter B It was found years ago that peeps were running Diesels on paraffin, The guy who took me to work 55 years ago was running his Merc190D on paraffin, the car had done 200.000 miles on the stuff proving to an unarguable conclusion that Diesel and Paraffin are much the same except the Diesel is more oil rich
In the bad old days, the Whole Earth Catalog had a listing for a methane generator which would generate enough methane to run a VW transporter (aka "bus"). You could fill it with any orgamic material (wood, brush, whatever) and mother nature would take care of the rest as the material rotted in the tank. But chicken... Chicken... Chicken... I can't say it, this is a family channel was the preferred material. Never saw it action, but I imagine it worked.
This video is a real eye opener. Kerosene being a jet engine fuel. Jet engines are a radial/axial compressor engine and completely different from a piston type IC engine. I guess that’s why the carbon build-up occurred at the top of the lawn mower engine combustion chamber. Great video as always!
That worked a lot better than I thought. Maybe try Avgas. That makes everything go better. Also very jealous of your runway area for the buggy. Great work mate.👍
Looks like a post is missing/deleted, but...Avgas is as it sounds. It's gasoline for piston powered aviation engines. The difference between it, and what you'd normally find at a regular gas station is Avgas typically still uses tetraethyl lead (leaded gas), rather than ethanol as its anti-knock inhibitor. As far as I know, the reason they are still using leaded is concerns over alcohol laced gasoline condensing moisture into water in the fuel tank, which could be a deadly situation in an aircraft. Also, as far as I know, typical octane rating is around 100 for aviation fuel.
Also lead as a valve lubricant similar to the problem older cars run into with valve seat recession. (A bit more problematic when you are 5000 feet up and the engine quits!) Used to be able to get 80 Octane and 100 octane but generally all you can find now is 100/100LL
LL meaning low lead. Depending on the aircraft you may be able to get a STC to operate on automotive gas but I'm not up on the particulars of that anymore.
thank you for the video. I want to add that the engine knock which you experienced would certainly damage the engine over time; perhaps damaged even after a number of hours. This is important to note.
My guess would be that the four stroke will run longer, as the two stroke need the oil to lubricate the piston and piston rings, and without oil in the fuel, it will seize rapidly - been there done that (by accident!) LOL
Greetings from Italy! Can you use whale oil for engine oil or fuel? I heard it called Sperm Oil or Spermaceti oil before. My grandmother used it to lubricate her sewing machine. It does not expire and can still be found on eBay! Can I send some to you?
Jacob Snow Of course. But you can still buy unopened small bottles of it online like on eBay. Transmission fluid, sewing machine oil, knife oil, and other products were whale oil. It’s legal to buy the old-stock products
Old briggs and stratton engines manuals recommend that you use two head gaskets to run kerosene. It sounds counter productive to lower compression but is manufacturer recommended.
![Felix "Unfair" | [Stray Kids : SKZ-PLAYER]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/Oswujxm2Ag0/mqdefault.jpg)
Here in Sweden during the 1950's we use tractors for kerosene and gasoline. There was a tiny little tank for gasoline just for starting. Before shut down, we have to switch a valve and run the engine for a couple of minutes to get gasoline in the carburetor. If forgetting this operation, we have to drain the system from kerosene, fill with gasoline, and start. At that time, the kerosene was much cheaper than gasoline or diesel. The carbon upbuild was tremendous... I dissembled a tractor with carbon in the exhaust system so the passage was as a size of a pencil. /Pelle
Thanks for this information.
Pelle Söderström u
A lot of old tractors were kerosene burners. John Deere made a lot of them. Changing back over to gasoline before shutting down also helped burn out some of the carbon. The combustion chamber was larger on kerosene engines and if you wanted to convert to gasoline only you had to braze an iron ring into head of each cylinder to raise the compression.
When converting over to vegetable oil as a fuel and living in a cold winter climate you need to follow the same shut down procedure. Of course, veggie oil won't work in Sweden due to the harshness of your winters. I wonder if mixing the oil with gasoline would help to thin the viscosity? (I'm referring to used veg. oil. Fresh would be cost prohibitive.)
same for italy. there are many who currently operate old kerosene engines lombardini but they simply use gas not kerosene anymore(not produced its called petrolio similar as word petrol in england). the advantage of kerosene, if project farm do not know, is that at higher load the engine stand really cooler than when operating with gasoline,
Many years ago we had a 1960's Plymouth Valiant with a slant 6 engine. We lived in NYC and my father was a new worker for Otis elevator at the time and not at mechanic's pay rate yet. With 3 kids (later 4) money was super tight and I mean super tight. I remember him putting in 36 cents of gas at the pumps sometimes when he was really broke and that happened more than you might think. My folks didn't gamble or drink or have any vices, the starting pay was just low for a family of 5 in the early 70's. Anyhow, Otis elevator company had metal cans of Otis Cleaning Compound that they used for machinery at the time. There were several times that we were out of gas and my Dad had no money and guess what? Pure Otis cleaning compound went into the gas tank and the car started up and got us home. Lol, my Mom and Dad and my younger brothers laugh at it now and talk about how new engines would never start or run on that stuff but then we think about what that cleaning compound may or may not have been made of, and you wonder.......who knows.? Maybe an airplane engine could have run on that stuff, lol. Ahh, I wouldn't trade in those days for anything, we really appreciated what we had and the real time we spent together.
Wow! Thanks for sharing this experience. I recall some very tight financial times as a child and those memories are the best.
@@ProjectFarm
👍🏼
Probably Stoddard solvent , bet the fuel system was institutionally clean .
It was probably a chemical like Brakekleen with a high % of naptha, which a car will quite happily run on, and really clean your fuel lines at the same time :)
@@ProjectFarm not good memories being broke in the cold. I think because money was tight growing up, I buy the toys I wanted & wished I had and some I've never used and.others uses a few times. Im.not stingy nor do I deprive myself.of anything
Another great video! Very informative!! My great grandfather had a 1920 Hudson super 6 that he converted so that it would run on 'coal oil' or what today we call Kerosene. He would start it on gasoline until it warmed up and then he turned a valve on the dash so then it would run on kerosene. As in your video, under load the engine would develop an pre-ignition knock. He discovered that by introducing droplets of water into the carburetor, the knocking would stop and the engine would smooth out, so he installed a small tube into the carburetor that was connected to the radiator (no glycol anti-freeze in the 1920's) with a valve in between on the dash and when it started to knock, he just opened the valve a little and the knock stopped. I asked him why he did the conversion and he said the main reason was that gasoline was $.19 a gallon and kerosene was $.03 a gallon! He lived until he was almost 100 and passed a way in 1967 when I was 12. I was lucky to have been a around when he was alive!
Interesting. Thanks for commenting on this!
YES
I love the human mind when it is working.
@@ProjectFarm Using water with kerosene was actually traditional back in the days of traction engines and before rubber-tyred tractors. Those giant prairie tractors by manufacturers like Rumely Oilpull and Aultman Taylor were sold that way. A book called The Allis Chalmers Story talks about Advance Rumely tractors because AC eventually took over the company in 1931. The book mentions, "The Oilpull engine design used ample quantities of water with the fuel mixture to retard preignition (and the resultant knocking)." They weren't the only manufacturer that did that and this is why those kerosene prairie tractors featured a water tank.
yep thanks for the info, very interesting
My Grandfather ran a road crew during the Great Depression and he said they ran maintainers, graders, rollers, and other gas equipment on kerosene. One would first use a small gas tank to crank and run till the engine achieved operating temperature then switched to the main fuel tank of kerosene. I still have one of those 2.5 gallon crank tanks. Great video as always. Keep em coming. 👍✌
Back in the day, many John Deere 2cyl tractors had one small gas tank, and one tank for "tractor fuel" which was very similar to kerosene. You had to run on gas until operating temp to get the motor hot to keep the kerosene vaporized properly, and then run on kero the rest of the day. Before shutoff you had to switch back to gas to avoid hard starting. Even on tractors that weren't dual fuel, cheap farmers would cut their gasoline with as much kerosene as they could and still start reliably to save on fuel costs.
the old "coal oil" as fuel, yep
Yes John Deere tractor fuel. I think it was green. My old 38 Chevy did fine on kerosene because it was low compression. Had to warm it up on gasoline. In the mid 50s kerosene was about 10 cents a gallon. That changed with higher demand because of jet engines using it. The old Ford model T ran good on moon shine or gasoline.probably would run good on kerosene. Grandma called it coal oil. If you stepped on a nail or something with your bare feet.grandma had your foot in a pan of coal oil. We didn't have electric. She had a 55 gallon drum full for lights. About 1951 we got electric. The adults were trying to turn on the lights in the church.They were on ladders trying to turn on the florescent lights. Someone saw this thing on the wall and flipped it on. The lights came on. Then it was praise the Lord.
That's right the starter was my dad's strong arms turning the big heavy fly wheel.
Had a guy that had a steep hill going down to the fields. Coming up the hill the tractor front came up and over killing him. His wife was trying to keep the farm going and also was killed on the hill. Remember my dad getting stuck. When he engaged the clutch the front end came up. When you got the old iron wheels stuck you weren't going any where.
Bought a 51 Farmall H once for 200 bucks It had been sitting in a field for many years. It was converted to propane but the remains of the old oil burning system was still there. Saw a Ford tractor with a Funk Engineering kit that allowed you to put a Ford 6 cylinder car engine in it.. Saw a Flat head Ford V8 in one. Took off like a Mustang.
I saw a King of the Hill (animated) show where Hank falls asleep driving a Semi and his friends (Dale, Bill, Boomhauer) take over and get stranded on a mountain-top. They ran out of fuel. In the semi were antiques being transported and some of the antiques were Kerosene lamps. They utilized the kerosene while going backwards down the hill to pop-start the engine and turn around on a semi-runaway runway. It was nice to see this actually tested even though that likely wasn't the reason you did this test. I appreciate all of your work and enjoy every second of your videos. Never stop - seriously, they're gold to all of your fans!
Thanks so much!
I'm in awe of the amount of work you put into your videos. Great stuff thank you
I appreciate that!
Do the mowers run and hide when you walk into Home Depot? : D
Oh, so that way why they were running! lol
Mowers...I think that's Syd from toy story, quick hide
Yes
This comment made my day!
😂🤣😂
When I was young, me & my dad here in The Philippines also tried kerosene on a motorcycle engine (air cooled engine without a fan) at a certain point engine heat up, almost to an overheat temperature so we cut the ignition off to stop the engine but the engine keeps on running, so we quickly shut off the fuel valve, engine still continues to run till all the kerosene was consumed. You should try to experiment this on what temperature does a kerosene don't need a spark plug & run on its own. I love watching your videos, nice work bro, Keep it up! 👍
Thanks for sharing.
Viewers please NOTE carefully: this is a FLATHEAD engine and they have very LOW COMPRESSION ratios so they'll run on just about anything . Not so with an car engine that has OHV's. So, don't expect the results you see here to be applicable to a modern automobile.
Russ G I once ran one such engine with white gas in an emergency. Ran more or less normal. I would never run a car on that stuff, though.
I poured about a few cups into a Ninja 650r parallel twin to get me 10 miles. It got me to the store just find under light load. Needed more revs to operate then on normal fuel. Normally I cruise at 80mph a 5k revs.
Miguel Angel Vizuet Mata white gas is another term for unleaded gasoline.
@@greenidguy9292 Not so much. The term "white gas" is more commonly used for such products as lighter fluid, naptha, Coleman stove fuel or other similar products.
@@williamjones4483 well as a former boy scout many years ago we always used unleaded (white gas) in our Coleman lanterns and stoves. Perhaps it depends on what part of the world you live in as to what "white gas" is.
You have to be one of the meanest, most passive aggressive people I have ever seen making videos!! ... Man, I can't keep a straight face. I actually love your videos with all the extremely useful content! You're the kind of guy I would want to be a close friend with. :) Keep up the great work and keep 'em coming!
LOL! Thank you for the positive comment!
I really like how you test stuff!!
Thank you
Even stupid concepts like this?
@@ProjectFarm î Kk i oui i ou i
Tmkc
I have been watching your channel for awhile and 1 thing stands out, those little engine's are built to last..
Thank you! I'm amazed at the durability of the Briggs & Stratton too!
The old farm tractors started on gasoline, warmed up, then were switched over to Kerosene.
just change plugs on 9N
Kerosene in the senseof Lamp petroleum or jet engine fuel? In English that gets quite confusing. have seen a few trators to be desinged to start on regular petrol and than lamp oil ( petroleum not petrol)
Yeah Kerosene used just be called Tractor fuel.
True
They also did it was lawn tractors back in the day. They had a split tank, one side was for gas and the other side was kerosene. They did it because Kerosene was so much cheaper to run. They would start the ending on gas and turn the gas off and turn the kerosene on.
Running an engine on a fuel with a lower octane count than needed is problematic.
However, it is possible to remedy this problem by injecting distilled water into the manifold.
It takes a little time and some experiments to make it work. Water is injected when knocking occur.
By heat absorption, when the water droplets turns to vapor, the sudden rise in temperature and, thus, pressure in the combustion chamber will be less and thus limit or remove the knocking.
Water injection and combined water and methanol injection, has been used by both the Germans and the allied during WWII and later to prevent knocking. High pressure turbo loading of piston engines in combination with low octane fuel have the the same result as you experienced: knocking.
What was found in both WW2 Germany and USA, was that some injection of a 50/50% mixture of distilled water and methanol would allow a higher manifold pressure ~= higher compression above the piston just before ignition without knocking.
The above is not perfect English, but I hope it make sense.
/John
Thanks for the ideas!
Very good
Your English is as good as mine, and I am a US native college grad.
Thank you for the great information. Very informative and also very interesting. Thank you.
Until you fu@# up the valve's or worse from putting water even little drops in a hot running engine.. Next ill read you can always just water your gas down if your low and cant get none and have to drive somewhere.. RUclips comments are priceless
Was reading an old Briggs and Stratton repair manual the other day and they used to have a procedure to run their engines on kerosene. The caveat was that you had to start them on gas and then switch them over once the engine was warm (they used a dual-fuel tank setup). Very cool!
Thanks for sharing.
I already knew that it would work, since Briggs & Stratton actually had adjustable ignition timing on some of their older engines specifically so they could run on kerosene.
Thanks for commenting on this!
Hi Cameron , yes correct but to see it is great!
i aLrEaDY kNeW
Well good for you.
Really great to know that it runs that well using kerosene.
I was really surprised it worked so well. By the way, great job on the videos!
Ruined the surprise.
I learn a lot from your videos too. I'm constantly surprised. Keep up the great work tearing down preconceived notions
Thank you!
When I was a student (MANY years ago) I had a friend who ran an old car on Paraffin (ok kerosine). It wouldn't actually start on it - he had a detergent bottle full of petrol (ok Gasoline) which he would squirt into the carburetor before starting the car. In those days kerosine was much cheaper than petrol, nowadays it is more expensive.
In my country kerosene is still cheaper than petrol
Here is a video idea - try putting the highest quality fuel in an dirty (uncleaned) engine, run it for some time and see whether it will clean some of the carbon and deposits in the engine Thanks about this episode - great video - very entertaining and informative.
Thank you for this recommendation!
5:44 sick camber bro!
*You some kind of mad scientist bro*
Thank you!
I remember here in Oz, about 50 years ago, farmers were using what was called Power Kerosene in tractors and stationary engines. They had to be started on petrol (gas) and switched over to kero when they reached running temperature.
Great information. Thank you
Back in the 1910's through the early 40's kerosene was used in farm tractors, because it was cheaper than gasoline. They used a different carburetor and had radiator shutters to control the engine temperature and help the engine reach operating temperature. The engine would actually start on gas, warm up and be switched over to kerosene. Advance rumley actually made engines that ran on kerosene alone.
This is interesting.
Yes, there were several alternative fuels tried. Kerosene was one of the more common, distillate (undrinkable alcohol), was another. Also propane or LPG as it was called at the time. Kerosene and distillate we're used in the same time frame LPG came later 50's and 60's. Now there's an idea, will a gasoline engine run on propane, without the propane fuel system?
Those tractors needed a bit of oil drained and replaced every day due to kerosene working past the rings and thinning crankcase oil. Earlier farm engines and tractors had total loss lubrication. Those earlier engines also used water from the cooling system to prevent detonation. A carburetor would have three parts; starting and warm up gasoline, kerosene for working, and water to prevent knock.
Look up 5 hp Falk and you will see three knobs on top of the carb. Here it is: ruclips.net/video/f7XLfYDocRg/видео.html
John deere had water valves on a carburetors that could be opened from the operators position to stop pre-ignition . It used water from the radiator to do this.
Jet fuel is a clear to straw-colored fuel, based on either an unleaded kerosene (Jet A-1), or a naphtha-kerosene blend (Jet B). Similar to diesel fuel, it can be used in either compression ignition engines or turbine engines.
Todd, always enjoy your videos keep them coming. I have a suggestion let's try running your go cart on AVgas 100 . Shell global makes it .
General repair
This is great information. Also, thanks for the recommendation to test AVgas 100.
Back in the 40s and 50s when I was young my dad had a farmal and a mccormorick deering excuse the spelling tractor both had duel fuel tanks one gas the other kerosene start on gas then switch to kerosene both started with hand crank if you didn't set the spark advance just wright they would backfire and could break your arm
I'm very farmiliar with that style McCormick deering you refer to. Had a Farmall F12 I was working on for a guy once. I forgot to retard the spark. When I hit the hand crank it kicked me pretty hard
That is why you always pull up on a hand crank and never push down. Lots of people with broken arms will vouche for that.
That was very interesting. I was told that if you warm up an engine, AFTER starting it on gas, you could change over to kero.
You actually started a warm engine on kero. I did not expect that. Thanks for posting this video. It was great.
Barry
Thanks!
So back in the day we had "commercial fuel" - somewhere between gasoline and kerosene. Many I-H truck engines (and others) had a 7 1/2 : 1 compression ratio and ran fine on commercial fuel. They'd also run all day on #1 kerosene. But you'd have to give them a "water tune" once in while to knock out the carbon. Happier on gasoline, but more costly and the mileage suffered a bit. 50/50 gasoline and commercial fuel was great was great for low speed tractor engines. Now with Cali CARB killing many diesels (w/o urea), gas tractors may come back ... So learning to mix your own fuel may become a deal again ... Just another tuning tool :D
Can you make a comparison of the differents types of gas available in gas stations (regular, premium...) ?
Thanks for this video project idea!
K05 T4R we have ethanol free gas where I live and it's about 75-80 cents more per gallon. Although it wouldn't be practical to do for a V8, I use a simple ethanol separator for making fuel for all my small engines. Basically I add a couple drops of food coloring to a quart of water and vigorously mix it into 5 gallons of gas that contains ethanol, wait for it to settle and siphon off the gas until I get down to the colored water. Because ethanol is hydrophilic, meaning it attracts moisture, all the ethanol is absorbed into the colored water and when separated all you have left is straight gasoline. I've seen this done on a larger scale doing 100s of gallons at a time but that wouldn't be practical for me.
Jon, straight gasohol, good stuff L:
When I was training to operate emission test equipment,we were told by the trainer that in our state captiol the area where emission testing was required ended at the centerline of a street,there fore if a person lived on one side of the street emission test required,other side no test.Unbelieveable unless you remember this is Washington State then it makes perfect sense.
Rules for thee but not for me.
Knock knock!
Who's there?
Ur engine. -_-
LOL!
Haha! I like this one.
Used Lawnmower Salesman . " This here mower is the opportunity of a lifetime"
Customer " I know, I can hear it knocking"
Imagine Mr Haney and Oliver Wendell Douglas in scene!
DrewT65 Issa Subaru
Old mechanic guy I know drains the tanks of mixed diesel and gasoline, just adds a liitle more gas to the mix, then runs his vehicle on it.
Thanks for sharing...well for almost 29 years I've used a mix of 250ml Kerosene to every 25 litres of petrol and I can tell you the engine runs very efficiently, smoother acceleration with slight 2-3% increase in overall performance
You are welcome! Thanks for sharing.
The 154 dislikes came from the people who tested this and didn't worked but ruined their engine
Or...from people who liked it somewhat, but just don't wish to have more like it in their recommend feed.
Why would a MORE purified gasoline ruin an engine. The higher the octane the better
Kerosene is jet fuel
That’s a pus c engine to break over some kerosene.
A diesel runs on kerosene
Thanks for this video I really enjoyed it. I can tell that a lot more effort went into this video compared to some of your other videos. You're doing very well and have been watching you for a while, I enjoy every video!
Thank you! Yes, I'm investing nearly twice the time and a lot more funding as well. Viewers deserve it and I'm also trying to demonstrate to my children a saying my father often said to me while growing up... "Anything worth doing, is worth doing right". Thanks again!
Project Farm, wise words and very true!
What an excellent channel !
Thank you!
As always I really enjoy your scholastic approach to it.
You are the scientist in every child I mean that in the best sense.
Thanks!
You should show the safety data sheets for gasoline next to the data sheets for your experimental fuel, so we have something to compare the kerosene values, etc, to! Otherwise, great video!!!
This is a great recommendation--thank you!
Kero is significantly safer. Flash point is much higher, vapor ignition is never an issue, and it's not even very nasty if you get it on your skin. Kero is really quite good stuff. Unfortunately it's more costly than motor fuels. Most engines that can run on kero can run diesel instead, which is cheaper most of the time. Many things that run on Jet-A can also run on good kerosene. And Jet-A will work in kerosene devices. Sometimes useful.
I once made a 1973 VW beetle run on kerosene on a bet. On my first run, it would stall under load but ran better once it was warmed up. My solution, I ran a copper coil around the exhaust manifold , and the fuel would flow through it, warner kerosene seemed to work better. It was dangerous but a low budget solution to win several cases of beer. The bet was to drive it around a city block 3 times. Won the bet
Most tractors made before 1940 were designed to run on kerosene. Start on gas, warm up then switch over. They also all had a water jet or injection system so that under full load they did not knock. it is said that running same amount of water and kerosene improves fuel efficiency and makes the motor run cooler under full load.
This is interesting. Thanks for commenting!
Runs better than I expected. Great video
Thanks for doing this! I have heard stories from the early days of driving how a Ford model T would run OK on Kerosene and sometimes that was all you could find. And a friend of mine remembers as a kid in the 1960s he knew of a weird old man in town who ran his 1956 Studebaker on Kerosene to save money. So it can work.
The model T had manual ignition timing and choke, and also pre heated air intake via the manifold, and individual vibrator coils per cylinder, with the distributor on the low voltage side, and could run on battery or magneto. Plus, it was a flathead. It could also run on alcohol.
I believe Studebaker's inline sixes at the time were flatheads too.
Great material always, running diesel is tricky unless you have a multi fuel military engine and I'm not sure how much they use those anymore. Diesel requires so much more compression ratio in naturally aspirated engines and cylinder pressure on engines with turbos and/or blowers.
Thank you for the feedback
have you tried running a gas engine on used vegetable oil or a mix of gas and vegetable oil?
Not yet. Thank you for the video project idea!
Great idea
Nitr0 Drift a diesel engine will run just fine on vegetable oil.
Traveling Monkeys yes but I'd prefer to not run old fry oil through my expensive injection pump or injectors I'd much rather run it through the carburetor on my generator or mix it with some gas to help it burn if it is a possibility
thats what everyone said about kerosene
I'm sure alot of people was wondering about this these days. thank for doing the test. keep it up! and also the music is great as well
Thanks, will do!
"She'll go 300 hectares on a single tank of kerosene!"
Thank you!
PUT IT IN H!
For 30 parsecs
@Dave Hanson "It no longer exists!"
It's a upper trim yugo
Briggs engine used to say put 2 head gaskets and a colder heat range spark plug in then you could burn kerosene with no knocking
Interesting.
@@ProjectFarm would that be because the compression ratio is decreased and an over all lower operating temperature? - I think everyone answering to this test of yours are frustrated petro chemists that took a wrong vocation in life😅
Thank you so much for your reviews and your craft. I would love to see videos on how you moded your lawn mower for a drill start.
Thank you for the feedback
Kerosene does have a use in V8 engines. I remember back in 1964 i hung out with a good friend when he worked as a mechanic at a gas station. One older man that when he changed his oil & he did it like clockwork. Im not sure if he drained all the oil out or just a couple of quarts & replace them with kerosene but they idled the engine for awhile then drained the oil kerosene mix then replaced it with oil. I do remember that his 1956 era Buick ran ultra quite & ultra smooth it also was about the cleanest engine inside & out. Jimmy was draining the oil & i noticed that the oil looked clean enough that he could have been actually putting oil in instead of draining it that's when he told me what the guy did. After all these years i never forgot & wish i had asked some questions because he had well over 150,000 miles on his car & it looked like hood up on a new car showroom. Whoever bought the car after this man sold it no matter what they paid sure got their money's worth for a 1956 Buick7
I have a few gallons of old kerosene (in unopened cans) that I have no real use for. Based on your video, I'd guess there would be no problem running my power equipment on, say, 10% kerosene mixed into the gas. Opinions?
BTW, when you adjusted the carb jet for kerosene, did it have to be richer or leaner for smooth running?
It had to richer to run smoothly
Grandpa had a 1940 Farmall tractor that started on gas then you'd swap to the larger tank which was kerosene.
yep back in the days of ww2 and gasoline was short, parrafin was made from coal (not these days , its refined from oil now) and thus was another source of fuel
Interesting!
Most of those engines were also very low compression compared to todays engines. Low compression engine on kero would probably not have the problem with predetonation/pinging as in the video.
Simplestatic it also had a spare hand crank for when the battery was dead. If it backfired you'd have to go fish your arm out of the nearest tree.
I also had a 1937 McCormick-Deering Farmall that had the same dual tank setup.
Hey there.... was just wondering if you'd like to do a video on different types of spark plugs in your transparent cylinder head to see the different combustion patterns and what not.... notably E3 spark plugs with their unique design.... but also would like to see the comparisons. Let me know... thanks.
Thank you for this recommendation!
If you were an academia you will have won a Nobel price for sure. Thank you for your innovative ideas
"both are the same temperature, very cold" haha that's how I measure temperature too.
Thank you
Kerosene is fuel
Red Bull is fuel
Kerosene is Red Bull
Peter that will destroy your body
Oh peta...
Bleach is mostly water.
We are mostly water.
Therefore, we are bleach.
W Winterheart the joke went right over head didnt it?
corn is fuel.
corn is alcohol (if'n properly condensed)
alcohol is ALL kinds of fuel
:>)
This was a great video. Now a big question. Will you consider stepping up your videos to include an old CAR???? I would love to see you run an old car on kerosene!! Like an old metro or Festival. Something small easy to modify.
This is a great recommendation! I'll see what I can do.
Run an old 12A rotary on Kerosene
We can learn so much from small engines that it almost seem's pointless to run test on cars.
Back in the early 1980's, we converted a friends old car, an old 1950's British 4 cylinder car, to run on Kerosene. Note that modern Kero is "lighting kerosene" what the old farm tractors ran on in the 1940's etc was a rather different "power kerosene". We disabled the car's original mechanical fuel pump and instead fitted 2 electric fuel pumps with a changeover switch. The main tank was filled with kerosene and small extra tank (located by the drivers legs !) held about 2 litres/half a gallon of petrol (gasoline) used for starting and warming up. We first used 6 feet/2metres of copper fuel line and wrapped it around the exhaust manifold and the exhaust header pipe, then linked it with a Y or Tee piece to the carb's normal fuel inlet. the car ran but "very awfully", so we added another 6 feet/2 metres of copper fuel line pipe, wrapped around the exhaust manifold, and it was much improved. Start the car and get up to speed and warmth on petrol/gasoline, then flick the switch, the first bit of (cold) kero stuck in the short length of fuel line just before the carburettor doesn't burn much and the car farts around and loses speed, but once the pre-heated kero reaches the carb, it burns satisfactorily, although barely so. A substantial kerosene smell was behind the car and we never got tail-gaters, we retarded the ignition slightly (easy with the old points and distributor systems).
Might be more possible with a diesel. The sadistic trio compression heat ignition
Man your channel is an epic display of mythbuster style of science. You rock man!
*haha* i remember accidentally filling my lawnmower up with kerosene once. Thing ran rough with lots white smoke haha
Thanks for commenting.
Jonny DIY
I did it with an outboard motor once, when I emptied the tank, refilled with petrol and finally got it started, everything vanished in that white smoke. :-)
Once again I enjoyed watching the video and the surprising results I honestly didn't think it would work that well. The only kerosene I've used for a different purpose was a blue color. Wonder why that is being the only color they stocked.
Thank you!
gasoline has ethanol. remove the ethanol and do the test ( 6:50 ) how long pure gas runs compared to gas with ethanol. you can find how to remove it on youtube.
Thanks for this video project idea!
Linux & Other Stuff where I live you can buy gas with or without alcohol. The 10% alcohol stuff's energy density is a smidge less than straight gas but it's also cheaper. Moreover assuming it's not a really old motor the alcohol stuff burns cleaner. And is probably better for the engine. I avoid it in small engines because I think leaving an engine overwinter with ethonal might cause problems.
In small engines, leaving the fuel to sit in the carburetor over the winter will result in corrosion. The EPA previously estimated that vehicles run on straight gas will see a difference of 10-15% fuel mileage improvement over vehicles run on E10/E15 when not designed to run on such fuels.
in my experience the difference in fuel mileage between e10 and straight as is much less than 10 percent. Numbers from epa I've seen say about 3 percent. Which matches up with I I observe.
The estimates have been updated over the years as fuel quality has improved. In my car's current configuration, I've seen fuel mileage as low as 28mpg on the highway and as high as 43mpg on the highway. It seems to heavily depend on the fuel quality and the fuel additive package, which varies between summer and winter as well as manufacturers. Vehicles designed to run on pure gasoline will always be more affected than those designed to run on ethanol blended fuels. All vehicles built since the introduction of ethanol blended fuels are intended to run on fuels containing anywhere from 10% ethanol up to 85% ethanol. Obviously, check your owner's manual before dumping E85 into any vehicle as not all vehicles are capable of operating with E85.
A friend of mine almost ran out of gas in front of a supermarket and we put in the tank several bottles of fuel additive for cleaning fuel injectors to make it to the gas station several blocks away. It ran rough but it did run. I believe we used Lucas fuel injector cleaner. Great video.
Nice! Thank you
great video!! you should test on what fuel a good old diesel engine «can’t» run!!
Thank you for the video project idea!
Kerosene deisel fuel ans fuel oil are just about the same thing Higher levels of refinement make them progressively cleaner
I'm not sure you're right about that, from what I understand, they are graded by the length of the hydrocarbons. A chemist might be able to correct me!
@@bigcheeses had some dipshit on a jobsite a few uears ago decided to save a couple bucks and filled his salamander with deisel fuel instead of kerosene It ran fine but stunk up the entire building with deisel fumes
Jet fuel is just highly refined diesel.
@@Dwohman no. Jet fuel is kerosene. They want it to evaporate. Using diesel in jet engines results in polution, incomplete burning. The aviatian diesel engines run on jet fuel , kerosene. Probably because of the gel effect in diesel at low temperatures....
Hello,i Love your Videos :) Greetings fromm Germany!
Greetings and thank you!
I really like this style of video that has an "in the field" component to it.
Thanks!
Some one could tell him to piss in the tank and I believe we would see a video on it soon ! LOL I admire your curiosity
How about White Lightening?
Thank you for the video project idea!
He already did everclear
What happens if you run a leaf blower through the intake of a lawn mower engine?
Thank you for the video project idea!
Turbo mower!
Now I wanna lowkey try that ctfu
I don’t want to ruin Project Farm’s project ideas but Mighty Car Mods did that with a car on a Dyno tuner and it did nothing. Maybe it would be more beneficial with a smaller engine? I guess he could test it.
Hot Rod magazine and Roadkill the show have had considerable success with leaf blower supercharging gasoline 4 cycle engines
I'm addicted to your channel!
Glad you enjoy it!
Can you test synthetic vs conventional oil
Yes, I'll put together a video on this soon. Thank you!
Project Farm perfect!
That will takes tons of hours of testing. You'll literally have to run engines night and day (tested in fuel injected engines and send off oil samples for analysis). That would only cover nonstop running conditions, which is a lot different than how people use cars (that's extreme duty). And just b/c it says it's synthetic, it's probably not. Group III+ hydrocracked is not syn (although can be very good and similar to group IV if made well).
garrett thompson h
The lubricity of conventional and synthetic will be the same. The benefit of synthetic oil is in the ability to handle much more heat and in the PPDs. Dirty synthetic will still flow like new synthetic. However, dirty conventional does not flow like clean conventional.
Will a gas engine run on hair spray ????
Thank you for this recommendation!
In theory, since hair spray is combustible, it should..... I'd love to see it tried though.
Hair spray will gum up the carb ports and needle so bad it wouldn't be worth trying !
depends on the hair spray. The old Aqua Net aerosol hair spray should work for a starter fluid....lol
Hahahaha that's actually intresting
Anybody remember the king of the hill episode were they ran the semi on kerosene
There used to be petrol and paraffin tractors , paraffin is also known as kerosene. Tractors such as the grey Ferguson tractors before getting the Diesel engine ran on petrol and paraffin and on top of the engine they had a tank that was in two sections , the largest section held the paraffin and in the smaller section was the petrol and the tank had a fuel tap on to switch from petrol to paraffin. They were started on petrol and when they were up to operating temperature they switched them to cheaper paraffin / kerosene. Over here in the UK there’s still many of them about and in use on small farms and small holdings to this day. Love your videos. Keep up the good work.
Thanks so much!
I used to use heavy equipment and cubs diesel fuel on the back of my truck I have ran out of gas before and put three of diesel in my tank the truck did run but not very good the trick to it was the motor had to be hot for it to work but like I say it ran horrible but was enough to give me to a gas station
Gasoline from before the 1940s was only 30 octane so engines back then didnt ping on kerosene.
It wasnt until leaded gasoline that we finally had 70 octane gas and higher.
New gasoline is spiked by additives and adding in higher octane fluids produced by heating the heavier oil products under very high pressure until they break molecular bonds into smaller chains.
The naturally occuring gasoline extracted from distilling crude oil is only 30 octane.
The higher octane gasolines allowed for more compression which allows a more efficient burn and more power from smaller engines.
This is great information--thank you!
@ferkemall couldn't one just raise the needle in the carb? OK so idle jet will have to be drilled out😅
Adding the octane boost to the K1 would make it more like jet/airplane fuel.
Since it's in between diesel and gasoline.
@W Winterheart also "jet fuel" and "airplane fuel AVGAS.....are not even close to the same thing
Thank you for providing actual scientific data. I use your videos for reference when i make purchases.
Thanks so much!
Can you try to run an engine on jack daniels or some Alkohol in the 40% range? (emergency scenario of course)
Thank you for the recommendation!
No. It’s much too diluted. Straight moonshine might work, though.
It will barely ignite as it is. Rubbing alcohol or meths perhaps; or overproof rum.
Here in Poland they sell "spiritus", about the same as Everclear maybe. The alcohol percentage is so high that if you leave the cap off it sucks water out of the air and lowers the proof slightly!
Ever clear would run in anything 😂
I was hoping to see the spark knock detonation happen in the invisible head. That would have been very interesting to see.
Yes, I'll try to capture that in a future video.
Tune in next week on Project Farm...... he runs a Flux Capacitor!
LOL! Thank you!
and he makes it work at 77mph
I've always thought Doc Brown should have used kerosene to power the gas engine on the DeLorean... until he blew up it with Chester's alcohol mixture.
It hasn't been invented yet
another great video sir 👍
Just FYI. Kerosene and diesel require an advancement of the timing to get a complete burn and maximum power. Unfortunately advancing the timing is very hard on the crankshaft, connecting rods, and piston. It's hard on a motor in general.
Also as you already found out, kerosene doesn't like a cold motor. Once the head is hot, it will self ignite with very little help from the spark plugs. Usually a much higher compression ratio is used in diesel motors for this reason. You can artificially increase the compression ratio by adding forced induction.
Now that I think about it, a gas blower hooked to the go cart would be cool. 😁
Water/methanol injection would be cool as well. We used to use cheap windshield washer fluid for this. 😀
Thanks so much!
I remember as I was growing up in England we had a Petter genset that ran on TVO or tractor vaporizing oil which was kerosine and it started on petrol and started with a hand crank. It produced I think 32volts.
Thank you for the feedback
I'm very surprised... I expected results similar to diesel...
I'm really surprised too.
Likewise. Seems to burn much faster, which is expected though.
I did this once when I was little, It worked great when mowing grass, I put an upwards stack on it and it made smoke rings when running. Just a short story....
Project Farm Because it is more similar to diesel... Can you test diesel engine on kerosene?? I'm very interested in THAT project? AMAZING CHANNEL!!
The old N series Ford tractors had versions that ran on both with 2 tanks. You just flipped a lever on the dash that switched from PETROL to kerosene. I think it actually had 3... One for water... it used it to help cool while running the kerosene. They also had one that just ran kerosene.
This one really fooled me. I was always under the impression that Kerosene and diesel were more similar than kerosene and gas and that since you couldn't get the engines to run on diesel that the same thing would happen.
Thanks for the feedback.
Yes, a gas engine will run on diesel, not well, but it will run once warmed up.
Kerosene is somewhere in between gas and diesel but has a great fuel purity and is very resistent to jellying so that means that once you warm it up it can burn in a gas engine.
It can work in a diesel too but as good because the fuel it not enough viscous and that means over time it will seize pumps and clean away the oil in the cylinders.
A small percentage of kerosene in diesel will help lower your jellying temperature a lot tho
@@phantomsoldier497 I just learned something new (actually a bunch of stuff). Thanks
Answered an age old question for me. Great job Mr. Spock!
Glad to help!
Great video. I also wouldn't have thought the engine would run on kerosene, but it certainly did. Have you tried kerosene in a diesel engine? (I'm working my way through your videos one or two at a time). Of course finding small diesel powered pieces of equipment isn't as easy or affordable as getting old mowers, especially since there's a chance for catastrophic failure while experimenting and operating in a way not intended, so I understand. I'd think it would be a closer match than kerosene to gasoline, but I could be wrong. Anyway, tanks for another fun experiment.
Thanks for the feedback.
Try kerosene and toluene! Or kerosene, and xylol!
Edited to xylol. Engines don't like sweetener.
Thank you for this recommendation!
Project Farm No problem. I think it'd be cool to see if either kills the knock. Thanks for the vid!
Did you really mean xylitol or maybe xylol.
Isn't xylitol artificial sweetener while xylol is the nice smelling stuff in Sharpies?
Marco Tedaldi Yup. Good catch. Also, sharpie smell is acetone.
Grandpa had a old tractor that would start on gasoline, then switch to other cheaper fuel ( had two tanks). Kerosene and condensate.
The octanes of paraffin is 0 .To use engine this fuel must have compression ratios 4 to 1 or lower. For higher compression we have preignition and knocking and engine will be destroyed for sure. Years ago were in Cyprus such engines .I had three. I gave the 2 and kept 1.The lower the compression, the lower the efficiency, so they stopped using them as antieconomic since fuel is expensive. I HOPE Nelly i satisfied you.I am Cypriot 73 Y.old with BSC on Physics.
Sorry.I wrote paraffin by mistake.Iwas referring to kerosene.
I love the fact that he always looks like he is about to laugh when doing the presentation and the analysis. Trying to be serious about a, seemingly absurd question, but a fun and educational subject. Seriously though, this is the best education and entertainment at the same time :D
Thank you
Yah your the best!!
Thank you!
Me: *Uses Kerosene as a substitute for fuel*
Police: "Wait that's illegal"
@Peter B It was found years ago that peeps were running Diesels on paraffin, The guy who took me to work 55 years ago was running his Merc190D on paraffin, the car had done 200.000 miles on the stuff proving to an unarguable conclusion that Diesel and Paraffin are much the same except the Diesel is more oil rich
@Peter B Thank you for your kind reply, it was very interesting to read through and I wish you also a very Happy Christmas and New Year
@@Seth_Stewart not taxed as road fuel. you bet your ass it is illegal.
Make a wood gas set up that be cool or compost methane engine
Thank you for the video idea!
In the bad old days, the Whole Earth Catalog had a listing for a methane generator which would generate enough methane to run a VW transporter (aka "bus"). You could fill it with any orgamic material (wood, brush, whatever) and mother nature would take care of the rest as the material rotted in the tank. But chicken... Chicken... Chicken... I can't say it, this is a family channel was the preferred material. Never saw it action, but I imagine it worked.
This video is a real eye opener. Kerosene being a jet engine fuel. Jet engines are a radial/axial compressor engine and completely different from a piston type IC engine. I guess that’s why the carbon build-up occurred at the top of the lawn mower engine combustion chamber. Great video as always!
Thank you!
That worked a lot better than I thought. Maybe try Avgas. That makes everything go better. Also very jealous of your runway area for the buggy. Great work mate.👍
Thank you for this recommendation!
Very interesting. Thanks
Thank you!
Project Farm epic video. If you don’t mind. Some videos please show that small off road car kinda thing. Good video anyways
Just a query...isn't AvGas a more refined Kerosine? Maybe that would be worth testing.
You're right. Thank you for this recommendation!
Looks like a post is missing/deleted, but...Avgas is as it sounds. It's gasoline for piston powered aviation engines. The difference between it, and what you'd normally find at a regular gas station is Avgas typically still uses tetraethyl lead (leaded gas), rather than ethanol as its anti-knock inhibitor. As far as I know, the reason they are still using leaded is concerns over alcohol laced gasoline condensing moisture into water in the fuel tank, which could be a deadly situation in an aircraft. Also, as far as I know, typical octane rating is around 100 for aviation fuel.
Ah, yes. I have confused avgas with turbine engine fuel, which is highly refined kerosene. Thanks for the clarification.
Also lead as a valve lubricant similar to the problem older cars run into with valve seat recession. (A bit more problematic when you are 5000 feet up and the engine quits!) Used to be able to get 80 Octane and 100 octane but generally all you can find now is 100/100LL
LL meaning low lead. Depending on the aircraft you may be able to get a STC to operate on automotive gas but I'm not up on the particulars of that anymore.
thank you for the video. I want to add that the engine knock which you experienced would certainly damage the engine over time; perhaps damaged even after a number of hours. This is important to note.
You are welcome!
Hi love your vids make a vid on a four stroke and a two stroke without oil and see which runs longer like if you agree
Thank you for the video project idea!
Your welcome😄
My guess would be that the four stroke will run longer, as the two stroke need the oil to lubricate the piston and piston rings, and without oil in the fuel, it will seize rapidly - been there done that (by accident!) LOL
J Rand but still I would like to see the damage difference and the time it took
Me too!
Can you run a gas engine on acetylene? Keep the great videos up by the way, love your content!
Thank you for the recommendation!
it would deadly knockins as acetylene detonates by itself if compressed over 15 PSI
Jacques Poirier yeah but it won't at 7 psi
I’ve done it on a small motor, it kinda works. Same with map gas
Greetings from Italy!
Can you use whale oil for engine oil or fuel?
I heard it called Sperm Oil or Spermaceti oil before. My grandmother used it to lubricate her sewing machine.
It does not expire and can still be found on eBay!
Can I send some to you?
Whale oil has been illegal in the USA for a long time.
Jacob Snow Of course. But you can still buy unopened small bottles of it online like on eBay. Transmission fluid, sewing machine oil, knife oil, and other products were whale oil. It’s legal to buy the old-stock products
Old briggs and stratton engines manuals recommend that you use two head gaskets to run kerosene. It sounds counter productive to lower compression but is manufacturer recommended.
Thanks for the feedback.