Ok, I have a friend that filled his truck with gasoline, it's a diesel,
he then proceeded to dump it and fix it, got caught had the fire dept.
haz mat team out there and everything. They asked him what he was
doing, he explained and here's my question: The fireman said that
he puts a couple of gallons of gasoline in his diesel all the time,
helps clean it out. Is this BS or what? Can you do
this? I would have thought no, but I'm asking if anyone here
knows what he was talking about.

Actually, all diesel has some gasoline in it.Fuels are blended mixtures. I believe up to 30% is acceptable for combustion and you can run a gallon of diesel in a tank full through your gasser too. Edited by: quantum mechanic

I've heard this tale before, the fuel system can tolerate a small quantity of gasoline (under 5%) and I've heard people claim to make more power using this mix. Contrary to common misconception, gasoline actually burns much slower than diesel, so I can't see it adding power. Gasoline is also extremely low lubricity compared to even super low sulphur diesel, and all the plastic and rubber components in that come into contact with the fuel are designed to withstand diesel, introducing gasoline could cause premature failure and leaks, so it won't do any good for your fuel system either. And as far as cleaning, diesel fuel systems problems are caused by wear, thats why a good diesel additive contains lubricity additive and NO alcohol or other 'cleaners'.

Guys,


A quick search found this post over at tdi
My wise old mechanic who has worked on Mercedes for years told me that if I put one gallon regular gas to a diesel tankfull after about every four tanks that it would perform essentially the same job as a fuel injector cleaner at a fraction of the cost.<?:NAMESPACE PREFIX = O /><O:P> </O:P>
I would like to hear a technical opinion.<O:P> </O:P>
Bill Carson<O:P> </O:P>, e-mail<O:P> </O:P>
Bill, I’ll turn the answer to your request for a technical opinion over to Brian Kmetz. As a mechanical engineer, Brian’s daily task at work is to extract BTUs through oxidation from mass quanti**** of methane and fuel oils. Needless to say, he knows how the fuel “stuff” works. Brian writes:<O:P> </O:P>
We hear this one all the time. Another version is to add one gallon of gasoline to 20 gallons of diesel fuel as a cheap easy anti-gel for winter fuel. I’ll include alcohols in this discussion because a lot of guys add it instead of gasoline. Both fuels have the same detrimental effect on diesel fuel and are very close in weight and BTU content.<O:P> </O:P>
The mechanic meant well and probably never saw a fuel pump or injector failure due to improper blending of fuels. But that doesn’t mean one is not risking damage, even in small dosages. <O:P></O:P>
Gasoline and alcohols hit diesel fuel right where it hurts the most. Those light thin fuels will lower the cetane number and lubricity. To explain how octane and cetane DO NOT work together, I’ll have to review more crude oil and fuel fundamentals.<O:P> </O:P>
The light distillates that gasolines are made from have a natural high-octane index. The middle distillates that diesel fuels come from have a high cetane index. The octane and cetane indexes are INVERSE scales. A fuel that has a high octane number has a low cetane number, and a high cetane fuel has a low octane number. Anything with a high octane rating will retard diesel fuel’s ability to ignite. That’s why each fuel has developed along with different types of engine designs and fuel delivery systems. Gasoline mixed in diesel fuel will inhibit combustion in a diesel engine and diesel fuel mixed in gasoline will ignite too soon in a gasoline engine.<O:P> </O:P>
A lot of old-time mechanics added some gasoline to diesel to supposedly clean the carbon deposits out of the cylinders. I have never read anything that said it worked. Gasoline will make the fuel burn hotter, and hotter burning fuels burn cleaner. That’s probably where the theory got started. In the older diesel engines that belched lots of black smoke even when properly tuned, the result of adding gasoline was probably more white smoke instead of black. This might lead one to believe the engine was running cleaner. Maybe so, probably

I run VW diesels and once screwed up an injection pump from running a blend containing gasoline. Not enough lubrication.

Centane improvers won't raise the centane level above 50% but exotic fuel oils like agtane will.


The aromatics he mentions are naphas (paint thinner, mineral spirit)


I have mixed 2% biodiesel, diesel and 7.7% EtOH without problems


I accidently put 50% diesel in a gasser before and it smoked and barely ran.Edited by: quantum mechanic

I used a 5 gallon Gerry can for gas after using it for Jet -A which is used on airports in many Diesel trucks. There was about a cup of Jet-A left in the bottom of the can, I figured that little bit won't hurt. I used the gasoline in my Ford P/U with 390 gasser and it ran like crap for awhile until the Jet-A was burned. After that I was very carefull about mixing fuel types even in very small amounts.

i still hear about people putting atf fluid in the tank. this has to be even worse than gasoline.


i would start using biodiesel if we would get more pumps up and running.

ATF is a moderate lubricant and a detergent, its not a great additive, but better than nothing, only downside is you might have trouble convincing someone that its not farm diesel.

1 qt of 30w oil to 28gal diesel makes my injection pump happy when the metering valve gets sticky.

LOL, I hope your not putting it in your '94 and expecting it to help your metering valve, DS Pump doesn't have one. Engine oil raises the fuel viscosity and can gum things up more than it will lubricate anything.