turbofiat124
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- Mar 23, 2011
- Threads
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- 288
Your probably asking yourself, why? When kerosene is $3.00 a gallon and gasoline is $1.97 a gallon. What's the cost savings?
I use kerosene in my parts washer (which holds 10 gallons) which is much cheaper and doesn't stink as bad as that naphtha based stuff that you would normally use. I use kerosene as an engine degreaser in a spray bottle and also to mop my garage if I spill oil on the floor.
When this stuff get's dirty and it's time to chain it out, I strain it through some SS wool and a large funnel to remove the big junk then a coffee filter to remove the smaller bits into used 1 gallon oil jugs. I had been using it as an accelerant to burn brush, trash, etc in a pump sprayer. But this year we have had a drought so I have not dared burn anything. Plus now that I own a trash compactor, I can throw most of this stuff in the trash can and let the trash man deal with it.
So I got about 15 gallons or so of this dirty kerosene in oil jugs laying about. What to do with it? I have a 50 gallon drum I pour used motor oil, ATF, gear oil, or anything petroleum based in and a guy picks it up to use in his waste oil heater. I could do that but I got to thinking wonder if I could use it in one of my riding mowers.
OK so I did some research and found a good link but can't see to find it.
B&S and some other companies used to sell dual fuel engines ages ago.
The engine needs a low compression ratio (~6:1) because kerosene is low octane and will detonate in a modern OHV engine. From what I read, the engines that were not OHV (the kind with the valves next to the pistons) have a C/R of around 6:1 and do not need any modification but the OHV engines have a C/R of 8.5:1 and could possibly detonate .
The kerosene needs to be heated a bit. Like a piece of copper tubing wrapped around the muffler to get it hot before you turn it in. You start off on gasoline then switch to kerosene once the fuel is heated. Then switch back to gasoline before shutting the engine off.
I've seen some YouTube videos of people simply putting kerosene directly in the tank but like allot of these folks I'm not sure if I'd do that. Kind of like these people who run push mowers off 1 lb propane cylinders by removing the carburetor and sending propane directly into the intake. Then regulating the engine speed by the fuel mixture (opening the valve letting more propane in).
I mean if I wanted to do it right, what would I need to do?
C/R: I've heard you can stack a couple of head gaskets to reduce the C/R but on an OHV engine, that would require resetting the valve lash and to be honest after I replaced the head gasket on my 21hp Intek, that sounds like more trouble than it's worth.
What if I used a no-foul insert. That should definitely drop the C/R down however it does not alter the "squish band". So I don't know if the squish band needs to be increased or I could get by with a no foul sensor.
Like I said, there is really no cost savings involved if you are going to use fresh kerosene. So it's not like I am wanting to set this engine up for permanent use.
Actually I have two Snapper rear engine riding mowers I would like to piece together and make one out of. Both lawnmowers have issues with the rear ends. The rear end in the later model is stuck in 3rd gear and the older model is locked up completely. I think the chain broke on that one. The older mower has an 8 HP Tecumseh engine and would make a great test mule. I don't care if that engine blows or not. I was too cheap to replace the 12HP B&S engine when my mom ran it out of oil so I bought a new 8HP Tecumseh engine and it has no balls when used on a mower with a 33" deck.
They actually make dual fuel engines that are marketed toward 3rd world countries. Like for generators and water pumps. Maybe kerosene is cheaper in those countries or it's safer to store large quantities of it instead of gasoline. I'm not real sure what the reasoning behind it is.
I'm not real sure why it's more expensive in the US than gasoline or diesel. Especially since they don't add any octane boosters to it like they would gasoline.
My guess is even though price usually dictates supply and demand, there is probably little demand for it today since everybody uses propane and natural gas for heating.
We had a couple of these heaters back in the early 1980s and they stunk up the house. Anytime I smell burning kerosene it "takes me back" to my teenage years.
Maybe kerosene has to be trucked in instead of being transported through the colonial pipeline and that's why it costs more.
From my understanding the only real difference between gasoline, diesel and kerosene is the number of carbon atoms. Supposedly each of these can be manipulated from the side draws on a cracking column. So if the supply for gasoline goes up, the refinery can make adjustments and produce more gasoline than diesel or vice versa.
I use kerosene in my parts washer (which holds 10 gallons) which is much cheaper and doesn't stink as bad as that naphtha based stuff that you would normally use. I use kerosene as an engine degreaser in a spray bottle and also to mop my garage if I spill oil on the floor.
When this stuff get's dirty and it's time to chain it out, I strain it through some SS wool and a large funnel to remove the big junk then a coffee filter to remove the smaller bits into used 1 gallon oil jugs. I had been using it as an accelerant to burn brush, trash, etc in a pump sprayer. But this year we have had a drought so I have not dared burn anything. Plus now that I own a trash compactor, I can throw most of this stuff in the trash can and let the trash man deal with it.
So I got about 15 gallons or so of this dirty kerosene in oil jugs laying about. What to do with it? I have a 50 gallon drum I pour used motor oil, ATF, gear oil, or anything petroleum based in and a guy picks it up to use in his waste oil heater. I could do that but I got to thinking wonder if I could use it in one of my riding mowers.
OK so I did some research and found a good link but can't see to find it.
B&S and some other companies used to sell dual fuel engines ages ago.
The engine needs a low compression ratio (~6:1) because kerosene is low octane and will detonate in a modern OHV engine. From what I read, the engines that were not OHV (the kind with the valves next to the pistons) have a C/R of around 6:1 and do not need any modification but the OHV engines have a C/R of 8.5:1 and could possibly detonate .
The kerosene needs to be heated a bit. Like a piece of copper tubing wrapped around the muffler to get it hot before you turn it in. You start off on gasoline then switch to kerosene once the fuel is heated. Then switch back to gasoline before shutting the engine off.
I've seen some YouTube videos of people simply putting kerosene directly in the tank but like allot of these folks I'm not sure if I'd do that. Kind of like these people who run push mowers off 1 lb propane cylinders by removing the carburetor and sending propane directly into the intake. Then regulating the engine speed by the fuel mixture (opening the valve letting more propane in).
I mean if I wanted to do it right, what would I need to do?
C/R: I've heard you can stack a couple of head gaskets to reduce the C/R but on an OHV engine, that would require resetting the valve lash and to be honest after I replaced the head gasket on my 21hp Intek, that sounds like more trouble than it's worth.
What if I used a no-foul insert. That should definitely drop the C/R down however it does not alter the "squish band". So I don't know if the squish band needs to be increased or I could get by with a no foul sensor.
Like I said, there is really no cost savings involved if you are going to use fresh kerosene. So it's not like I am wanting to set this engine up for permanent use.
Actually I have two Snapper rear engine riding mowers I would like to piece together and make one out of. Both lawnmowers have issues with the rear ends. The rear end in the later model is stuck in 3rd gear and the older model is locked up completely. I think the chain broke on that one. The older mower has an 8 HP Tecumseh engine and would make a great test mule. I don't care if that engine blows or not. I was too cheap to replace the 12HP B&S engine when my mom ran it out of oil so I bought a new 8HP Tecumseh engine and it has no balls when used on a mower with a 33" deck.
They actually make dual fuel engines that are marketed toward 3rd world countries. Like for generators and water pumps. Maybe kerosene is cheaper in those countries or it's safer to store large quantities of it instead of gasoline. I'm not real sure what the reasoning behind it is.
I'm not real sure why it's more expensive in the US than gasoline or diesel. Especially since they don't add any octane boosters to it like they would gasoline.
My guess is even though price usually dictates supply and demand, there is probably little demand for it today since everybody uses propane and natural gas for heating.
We had a couple of these heaters back in the early 1980s and they stunk up the house. Anytime I smell burning kerosene it "takes me back" to my teenage years.
Maybe kerosene has to be trucked in instead of being transported through the colonial pipeline and that's why it costs more.
From my understanding the only real difference between gasoline, diesel and kerosene is the number of carbon atoms. Supposedly each of these can be manipulated from the side draws on a cracking column. So if the supply for gasoline goes up, the refinery can make adjustments and produce more gasoline than diesel or vice versa.