i am an idiot, 3B on petrol (1 Viewer)

[350HJ75]

You know those things that you hear other people doing and think you will never do? well i estimate i had about 15L of diesel left when i filled up 65L of petrol onto my BJ73.

From there i drove home about 5km, next morning drove 5km back to the carpool spot with no issues. got back from carpool that afternoon and the old girl was funny starting and running but just managed to do a highway run to check it was ok and got home but stalled in the garage and would not re-start.

a bit of trying was getting some rough idling and stalling

So after searching here I first went with EDIC problems but everything was ok there.

Then moved on to air in the diesel lines because surprisingly the symptoms are very similar - missing at idle, puffs of white smoke, stalling after 30sec of running.

Trying to fix the air in the diesel lines issue tonight i had just replaced primer pump, all flexible rubber hoses and clamps from tank to engine bay and both fuel filters.

I called a mate over to help me re-prime the system and during the process he asks me what smells like petrol? then it dawned on me...

so in total i have traveled 22km, would i have damaged anything? and what should i do from here to get it running again after draining and re-filing the tank with diesel?

thanks

 

[Jeepster09]

I have seen that happy many times over the years. If you change the filter and drain and refill tank you may be okay. I think with the little driving you did you should be. On a plus side it cleans out all the carbon n the motor.

 

[tornio]

... add some oil (ENGINE OIL , MIX OIL OR EVEN ATF) to the fresh diesel to lubricate the IP and.... good luck !!!

 

[gerg]

Don't start it again until you get every single bit of gas out of every part of your system.
Drain your tank and rinse it out with a bit more diesel.
Hand pump your feed line to the fuel filter with filter out till purged.
Replace with new primed filter, or just clear all of the gas out of your filter then put it back an.
Hand pump and loosen the big screw on the side of the injection pump and clear all of the gas out. This will take quite a while.
Unscrew each injector line and drain the gas.
Remove glow plugs and turn engine over to clear injectors and prime the injector lines.

When I was a kid I put a sticker right above the gas cap that read " diesel only moron". My wife was super offended and asked if it was meant for her......I said no.....it's meant for me.

 

[gerg]

It's in the very top right hand part of the pic. It has a 17mm keeper with a 10mm slotted screw in the middle. You only need to loosen the screw. It is there to prime the pump body. It will puke fuel as you pump the hand primer. Diesel is heavy so if you do it sort of slow the gas should always rise to the top and come out first.

 

[John Galt]

Diesel and petrol will totally mix together, so take a lot of the advice you get with a huge amount of doubt.
Drain the fuel from the tank [there's a drain plug on the bottom],
Add a can of two-stroke oil, fill with diesel and you're good to go.
Don't panic, you've caused no harm.

 

[350HJ75]

Thanks for the replies.

I will buy a siphon hose this afternoon and drain the tank from the filler neck as much as possible, annoyingly the drain plug on the bottom of the tank is partially blocked by the protection plate so I think I will need to loosen the straps and shuffle the plate around to gain access to the plug.

how much oil are we talking about adding? 1L to a full tank? because initially I think I will only be able to put a 25L jerry can of diesel in to get it going again.

What do people think about bleeding the system by pressurising the fuel tank and cracking the bleeders rather than using the hand pump? I never did any priming after putting on new filters so I am wondering if the hand pump is sufficient to re-prime a totally empty system.

 

[tornio]

hi, i would add 1 or 2 liters of oil to 25 lt of diesel and if you can't drain the tank completely use 2 liters of oil
the hand pump is sufficient , only it will take a moment.
prime the pump body like gerg said , put a new filter previusly filled of fresh diesel and go!

p.s. to drain the tank you can disconnect the rubber tube at the priming pump inlet and attach to the tube an inline electric pump

 

[gerg]

What is the purpose of the oil? This isn't a rotary pump. The inline pump is not dependant on fuel quality to lubricate it. Add it if you like but you cannot reverse what is done with oil. I too would take a lot of the advice with a huge amount of doubt. White smoke and stalling could be from low compression namely burnt exhaust valves and broken rings. Running a lean air fuel mixture with high compression would result in extremely high egts and high cylinder pressures. I hope your running issues are just air in your system. I sincerely do. It might just be a very strange coincidence that you ran gas in your engine and it won't run now.

 

[mudgudgeon]

I also don't get the purpose of adding oil.
If you're worried about lubrication of the IP on start up, @gerg method well put diesel in the IP before restarting.
If you're worried about lubrication beyond that, add a shot of oil to the new filter so it gets to the IP within seconds of starting.

 

[350HJ75]

well the car is running again now so all good so far.

I siphoned all the fuel from the tank, the hardest part was using a jiggle siphon through the S shaped filler neck so eventually I disconnected the filler neck and got it from the tank inlet, much easier that way. Drained the last fuel from the tank with the drain plug underneath. I pressurised the tank with air and went along the car blowing out the lines to make sure they were empty all the way up to the bleed nipple on the filter.

Re-filled with 20L of diesel and primed the whole system using only the primer pump, which I was surprised seeing the whole system, filters and all was empty but within 50 pumps or so it was primed. goes to show that the pump works well when the system is sealed well.

Car started after a bit and I have done 150km now no issues so it seems I have avoided any damage.

I used no oil in the end under the same thought that if diesel is supposed to do the lubricating job normally, then I will make sure it is primed properly.

from now on I will pay more attention at the pump... cheers for the help

 

[gerg]

That is awesome to hear. I am very happy for ya.
g

 

[roscoFJ73]

Petrol in diesel wont cause a problem except may be if you were doing 80mph when it came through the fuel lines.

 

[350HJ75]

80mph??? remember this is non turbo 3B haha

 

[lowenbrau]

Count me amoung the 'no big deal ' group. In the late 70s, when VW introduced the rabbit diesel to Canada the owners manual said to add up to 1/3 gasoline if you couldn't find winter diesel. I have run all kinds of ungodly liquids through my 3Bs over the years.

 

[gerg]

And my cousins had tainted fuel from a station and burned a hole right through a piston in his 2lt. To each his own, but I doubt I'd see anyone tune their truck to ungodly high egt which is what your doing with gas. Go to a turbo forum with gassers and tell them you run 20:1 compression with 20:1 air fuel ratios and See the response you get. I doubt it would be positive!

 

[tornio]

What is the purpose of the oil? This isn't a rotary pump. The inline pump is not dependant on fuel quality to lubricate it. Add it if you like but you cannot reverse what is done with oil. I too would take a lot of the advice with a huge amount of doubt. White smoke and stalling could be from low compression namely burnt exhaust valves and broken rings. Running a lean air fuel mixture with high compression would result in extremely high egts and high cylinder pressures. I hope your running issues are just air in your system. I sincerely do. It might just be a very strange coincidence that you ran gas in your engine and it won't run now.

hi all , the purpose is : lubricate the IP and the injectors because nowadays diesel is far less lubricant that the diesel of 30 years ago .. here in europe.. i don't know if it is the same in the states...

HAPPY TO SEE that the toy is still running without issue !!!

 

[gerg]

inline pumps don't suffer from the degraded lubricity of low suffer diesel like rotary pumps do.

 

[tornio]

hi gerg, i Always thought to add (sometime) oil to fuel helps to lubricate the internal chamber of the IP and the injector
this because but not only an old good mechanics told me that a lot of time ago .

I Always though that running a diesel engine with petrol will damage/stuck the IP before damaging pistons or Others parts

this occours because petrol has no lubricity.....

maybe i'm wrong , it is only my opinion

sorry i have to do (i'm on job) but i 'm interested , i want to study this fact

see you !!

 

[gerg]

Do as you please but inline pumps are lubricated by engine oil, are very low pressure with much looser tolerances compared to common rail pumps. You will never see a 40 yr old rotary pump. In another 40 yrs inline cruiser pump will still be pumping their measly 1600psi out or what ever you old injectors require them to make. It's like the AK47 of injection pumps.