Maybe Morr knows!

[Philip]

I have heard that using a small amount of petrol is good for thinning down veg oil. Is this possible and what is the ratio, if you can. Trying to avoid second tank.
Thanks Philip

[da SLUG man]

I have heard that using a small amount of petrol is good for thinning down veg oil. Is this possible and what is the ratio, if you can. Trying to avoid second tank.
Thanks Philip

i heard parrafin (kerosene?)

[openback]

when top gear did their test a while back they used 5% (i think) white spirit with filtered waste veg oil. when i did a bit of reading on the net a few months ago i found as many recipies as web sites! some did use varing quantities of unleaded can't remember more.

[ssray]

as far as i can work out if you use petrol in veg or diesel it ups your octane rating and reduces you cetane rating wich is the opposite of what you want for a diesel. I have seen a guy claim that he uses 10% white spirit all year round,not sure if it will work if it gets too cold, dont want to risk ip damage.
why not use some dino+veg when really cold?.
i used 10% white spirit in my bx diesel yesterday, it stopped after 5mins and i had to resort to wd40 to start it,may be because i attempted to mix it in tank ie chuck it in, next time i`ll mix it in a container before.

[chunkymonkey]

Be careful of falling foul of customs... it still has to be 96% ester to meet their criteria. But Yes you can use unleaded Or white spirit - You can't use Turps substitute (kerosene) As this is not allowed by her majesty (don't ask me why!)

I have succesfully used ~5% white spirit mixed with vegoil for quite some time now - I have a heat excahnger but no second tank. Works fine.

[Morr]

I have heard that using a small amount of petrol is good for thinning down veg oil. Is this possible and what is the ratio, if you can. Trying to avoid second tank.
Thanks Philip

Yes, you can use petrol to thin veg oil. In fact a reasonably large number of veggie users around the globe appear to do this. However its not without risk. I'm not 100% au fait with the inner workings of diesel fuel pumps, but would consider this, on older diesels if you accidentally filled up with petrol it would not run correctly but after a flush out would be OK, newer diesels in this scenario can easily have have their pump severely damaged. I believe this is due to the petrol attacking the seals.
I'm not sure where the Surf falls in this, ie how easily the pump could be damaged by petrol, even if in diluted quantities.
I know of guys in th US using between 10 & 20% petrol to thin waste oil, so between 5 & 10% would probably be fine for veggie in warmer weather.
Personally, I'm not ready to take the chance.

[Linda]

Be careful of falling foul of customs... it still has to be 96% ester to meet their criteria. But Yes you can use unleaded Or white spirit - You can't use Turps substitute (kerosene) As this is not allowed by her majesty (don't ask me why!)

Not totally true. Kerosene (the 28 second heating oil type, not the indoor type) is mixed with Petrol (and sometime some diesel thrown in) to lower the octane rating and results in a fuel known as TVO (Tractor Vaporising Oil). This is ok for use in Vintage tractors ( even on the road) without tax. Adding Kerosene to veg oil in a deisel will be regarded as a fuel substitute I think and will attract the relevant rate of tax (46p a litre I think).

[FlySurfer - Edy.]

http://www.uidaho.edu/bae/biodiesel/rawoils.html

Makes for very interesting reading.