Dunno if the son ran it until it quit or if he just noticed it running funny and shut it down before major problems. He said the son DID run it for a while on gasoline...
The dad here at work was laughing that both he and his son did the same thing by filling their diesels with gasoline. Both just drained fuel and prefilled a new filter to get both the CTD and the PS going again. I agree, very very lucky on the PS!
The dad hasn't had any subsequent problems with his CTD after its temporary Gasoline "diet"...


Keith

 

I put 15 gallons of diesel in my 440 crew one time, it seemed to run OK, but lacked a ton of power on the hills, if I kept the revs up I was ok. It pinged like an SOB if you "leaned" into it. And talk about smoke!! Drove it until it was nearly empty then filled her up with 93 and all was well.

Why would diesel break rings in a gas job??

 

From the really nasty detonation.

I've got an old lawn mower I'm trying to kill, a 3.5 HP B&S pushmower that's about 30 years old and has a bad exhaust valve guide - it smokes worse than the weedeater. I've been using it to burn off unusable fuels (15 year old 2 stroke mix left over from my grandfather's chainsaw, stale RC car fuel (nitromethane and methanol), and diesel I poured out of my old fuel filter. I mix 50/50 with gas. It digested the first two things pretty well, the nitro smelled . It wasn't real happy with the diesel. It knocked pretty loud in thick grass - and we're talking 6.5:1 compression here. It was down on power, too. The next time I went to start it, I had to use ether, the cold diesel/gas mix wasn't vaporizing well enough I guess. Piece of crap was running when I put it away in the fall, it'll probably start in the spring.

 

"Pinging" is detonation with VERY fast flame fronts and high shock pressures.. That'll break rings!

Diesel's Cetane rating has the opposite of the Anti-Knock properties of OCTANE.
Compressed Gas/Air has to "wait" for the sparkplug to start the process.
Add some diesel and it seriously lowers the octane rating of the fuel makin' it knock like hell!
That'll damages those delicate gasser pistons!

K.

 

LOL!!! I had one of those lawnmowers too. I ran everything I could think of through it, and it wouldn't blow, including paint thinner!!! I then removed the air cleaner and proceeded to spray nitrous to it. Directly down the carburetor, talk about a FOGGER...lol All I got was vroooooom.....BBBAAAAANNNNGGG!!!! Clunk.....End of story. Did the same thing to an old 2.3L 4banger mustang we were swapping to a 5.0. That 2.3 could take a TON of nitrous! lol I put a 200 shot to it before it popped.

 

I knew detonation would kill it, I just wanted to make sure something else was not going on too. I kept the detonation to a minimum.

 

I worked for a company where the owner sent one of the worker bees out to have her mercedes cleaned and fueled up for the weekend. The kid came back and you could see him coming from blocks away. Diesel in a gas mercedes smokes a lot. Thay drained it. Not sure if it had any perm. damage or not but most of us got a chuckle out of it. Served her well for using employees to run her chores

 

Funny... That lawn mower must of shown up... I got one too!!!! To lazy to buy gasoline so I look for anything I can put in the tank that is flameable... Diesel, old chain saw gas, white gas (coleman fuel), etc... Starts every time... But I got this problem with the flywheel breaking keys... Maybe I should mow grass and not rocks!

 

It's probably breaking keys cause the keyway is worn, once it gets a little play you will start snapping them. Especially if it is backfiring and running rough from your interesting fuel choices . If your hitting rocks that won't help either.

 

It is funny so many dieselheads are running such "interesting" fuel in their old B&S launmowers!!!
I have (had) several gallons of old "red" diesel that I had to dispose of and NOT thru my CTD.
I have been blending diesel into my mower since last summer!
RUns just fine! Sorta hard starting when it gets cold but it sure has a nice exhaust smell

When I was a kid, I ran our old Sears tecumseh engined mower on pure methanol! Ran great after opening the jet some. Exhaust would bring tears to your eyes with the formaldehyde in the exhaust! Had to adjust the carb some more to make it tolerable!
I had a Love/Hate relationship with that #$%^ mower!!! It LOVED to be a pain to start and I HATED to use it!!!

K.

 

I do that all of the time when I run out of fuel in my mower. I have a honda mower and I gave 25 $ for it a few years ago. I bent the crank shaft so bad that I could not run it . I was ticked so I just picked up a oak board and a shop hammer and several good hits later. No more vibration or bent shaft. I did not think that a engine could take that kind of abuse. I would not have done it but It is only a 25 $ mower.
I added a gallon of gasoline to my diesel on my vw, by mistake. It did run different for a few days and I was uneasy about the results. If it had been my dodge I would have drained the fuel tank. I was tired an it was late, I said blow up if you wont to. It did not, I start it with Starting Fluid also when it is cold. It is a tough little engine, with 300 k miles. Jim