Practically Classics Forum

SirTainleyBarking wrote:some 6 cylinder Landrovers have been run on kero when out in the bush and nothing else was available

The TD5 will run on it, as will the 300 so I assume all the older diesels will with a bit of fiddling. A load of it was recovered as waste oil a few years ago so got used in the farm vehicles that aren't used on public roads. There was a 1988 (e reg) Hilux on the farm until a few years ago that I swear would run on coal if you could work out how to get it in the tank.
I'm not sure I would try running a petrol / kerosene mix in any of the petrol engine landies though.

My comment was more aimed at the people saying they don't modify anything on their cars as I suspect most of them have had their heads modified to take unleaded fuel.

You might be surprised about kero - it was the main ingredient of "Vaporising Oil" (better known as TVO, which is actually a brand name!) and a friend had a Fergy that would run on pure kero - so long as it was warm and the tickover was a little higher. However, in Cumbria at least, VO engines need petrol to start the engine and get it to running temperature. The engines also have a really low compression ratio (IIRC about 4:1!). Ferguson even made "Lamp Oil" engines for developing countries - this was even thicker stuff than kero and the CR was even lower (3:1?)!

I suspect that, in a warm place like Africa, the higher CR of the Landy wouldn't be so much of an issue (and two head gaskets might lower it enough). A little 2-stroke oil and some petrol (about 15 kero to 1 petrol and not a lot of oil!) is usually added to kero to make VO these days (the oil lubricates the bores as the kero tends to wash them clean) and the petrol just makes the tickover smoother.

When I was younger, the smell of combines always made me think of ice cream! The combines ran on VO and the ice cream vans (Bedford CAs) had VO engines to run the fridge! Strangely, as I used one or two VO engines on the farms later on, they didn't have the same effect - perhaps the cow and pig muck smell altered the VO smell!

Diesels will run perfectly well on kero, the problem is that kerosene is a cutting fluid whereas diesel is a lubricant, so using kerosene will wear out the injection pump and injectors very quickly. Regarding use of kerosene in spark ignition engines, there has been some debate on this recently as it has been suggested that adding kerosene will counteract the high volatility of modern unleaded petrol. TVO engines are designed to vaporise TVO properly and running a normal car engine on TVO or kerosene will cause rapid wear, apart from the fact that it is illegal. No doubt I will be quickly corrected if I'm wrong, but TVO engines were started and warmed up on petrol before switching to TVO. I remember the ice cream vans, they were Commers in my neck of the woods, and the auxiliary engine in the back was a Ford 1172cc, modified to run on TVO.

Our aircraft diesel engines (derived from Mercedes car engines) run on AVTUR (basically kerosene) and as a result the pumps etc. all have to be upgraded to cope with the lack of lubrication.

If I read the original comment on 6cyl Landrovers correctly, it was referring to spark ignition engines

Silly question but why do aircraft engines run on kerosene? I was lead to believe that it was a poor fuel compared to diesel.

Prior to doing that Imp Fuzz fitted an efi unit off a Mini onto an Austin A40 farina. It was done by Canems and improved both the performance and economy quite dramatically. The only problem was that the brakes were not up to handling the power. I would imagine that the same conversion done to a Morris1100/1300 would be good. They already have disc brakes and hold the road as good as most modern cars. You would then have a car that could, if you wanted to, be used as a daily driver. I wonder if I could canabalise something to fit an efi unit to my Wolseley 1500?

It is all a matter of personal taste, for me I don't really think efi is worth the effort I haved electronic ignition on 2 of my cars which transforms reliability immensley, for my 2.25 landrover I have a megajolt which transforms it's wading performance, but I have kept the dizzy with points fitted as a back up, combined with petrol and lpg fuel systems It should always get me home.

TerryG wrote:Silly question but why do aircraft engines run on kerosene? I was lead to believe that it was a poor fuel compared to diesel.

One big advantage is that it is thinner than diesel and therefore more resistant to waxing and freezing. At jet airliner cruising levels the outside air temperature will be around 70 degrees lower than ground level - so -50 is common.

Because jet engines use kero-based fuel, the fuel is readily available at most airports and so it makes sense to use it in the diesel piston engines too. As a bonus, it is subject to less tax in the UK and Europe and is more cost efficient.

Richard Moss wrote:Because jet engines use kero-based fuel, the fuel is readily available at most airports and so it makes sense to use it in the diesel piston engines too.

Eh? In all my days as a pilot I've never seen a diesel piston aero engine! What were/are they fitted to?

Luxobarge wrote:

Richard Moss wrote:Because jet engines use kero-based fuel, the fuel is readily available at most airports and so it makes sense to use it in the diesel piston engines too.

Eh? In all my days as a pilot I've never seen a diesel piston aero engine! What were/are they fitted to?

In relatively recent times, the Mercedes OM660 Diesel engine (as found in Smarts, various motorcycles, a handful of converted minis, some Reliants, some fire appliances and several boats) has been approved for aeronautical use. Some Americans can be seen talking about it here. A quick search around the term "Diesel aero engines" throws up loads of interesting stuff on the subject.

One lives & learns.


Please excuse my diving in like that but I found this fascinating and couldn't help myself.