Expected life expectancy from WMO?

[spencer1885]

You need a lot more kerosene to reduce the viscosity than you do with RUG that's why it gets used.
Veg oil users use RUG also as a viscosity reducer for the same reason.
I don't believe the statement that you get pinging with RUG in a diesel as that's not my experience or veg oil users that I have spoken to.

[vdubnut62]

Any reason not to thin with diesel? Is kero thinner to start with? I worry about the RUG making the mix explosive. Oh yes, I  found out the hard
way when I poured some mix on a brush pile and lit it.
Ron

[cognos]

Or you could reduce the viscosity with regular diesel fuel... safer than RUG, possibly less expensive than kerosene, and contains proper fuel additives that will help with the problems associated with burning WMO - namely deposition in the combustion chamber, dirty injectors, off-spec cetane, etc...

[spencer1885]

I checked out different oils and all have lots of additives which means even nice clean looking hydraulic oil will give the same results, this is why veg oil is used world wide by all sort of people in diesel engines and why you don't hear about WMO being used.

[cognos]

This is true. Oils used as lubricants will have metallic salts as additives, which aren't meant to be combusted, and will leave an abrasive ash.

The trick is to try to use an additive in the fuel that will stop this ash from deposting. Diesel fuel contains additives that assist with this.

[spencer1885]

You can thin WMO with what ever you want, it just down to what's the cheapest way of doing it which is why RUG gets used.
You can also decoke the engine more or feed in  to the inlet manifold some thing to help reduce carbon build up but none of those things will stop the WMO producing the abrasive ash grinding your piston rings and bore away.

[billswan]

Well guys

For what it is worth i stumbled on a 30 gallon barrel of 30 year old straight 20w engine oil. And run it through my 10/1 thinned with number 2 diesel at the rate of 9 oil to 1 diesel. The oil was new never used so no carbon. oil rated I believe cc-se.

I thought it not being a multi grade would help but it seams not so, my engine actually ran better on the dirty god knows what oil in the used oil barrels.
Injector tip and precup seemed to fill up with carbon faster than the junk oil.
So what does that prove??

Maybe fresh oil even 30+ years old has additives that are not degraded by use. Totally just guessing here.

Billswan

[cognos]

30 year old oil still has the original additives in it - degraded by contact with oxygen, maybe moisture, maybe contact with the drum and liner, who can say?

Unless the drum had never been opened, the additive will degrade with oxygen contact. Or just plain age.

But even then, the stuff was never meant to be burned, so it's going to deposit crap in the combustion chamber.

Old oil may even be worse - some of the additives used back then aren't legal any more.

[spencer1885]

Billswan,
I was given 205 litre drum of Total two stroke oil the red stuff and I did not see any improvements in the day to day carbon build up or associated daily problems.
.

[mobile_bob]

to be honest the only experience i have with burning oil in a diesel is burning 15/40 diesel oil
the stuff is now a low ash, made for cat, oil that apparently causes no problems, or at least has not
done so in one of our service trucks.

it has a 6.9l diesel and has amassed  many thousands of mules burning a 70/30 mix.

heavy duty diesel all burn oil, some of which are still acceptable down to 1gallon per 1000 miles, during normal
operation, if the oils that are used left behind and abrasive ash the engine life would be dramatically reduced

we just don't see that happening however.

perhaps 15/40 diesel oil, especially the new low ash stuff burns cleaner without leaving behind all the abrasive crap?

bob g

[spencer1885]

Bob,
Low ash oil is a good thing but no lubricating oil is going to burn in a diesel engine as fuel and in such high to nearly neat concentrations with out it producing enough abrasive ash to cause ring and bore wear.
Did I read some where that Detroit Diesels suffered from bore and ring wear from the wrong sump oil and I am assuming that was from just small amounts of oil passing through the engine and not gallons of the stuff being injected in to the cylinders. 

[billswan]

30 year old oil still has the original additives in it - degraded by contact with oxygen, maybe moisture, maybe contact with the drum and liner, who can say?

Unless the drum had never been opened, the additive will degrade with oxygen contact. Or just plain age.

But even then, the stuff was never meant to be burned, so it's going to deposit crap in the combustion chamber.

Old oil may even be worse - some of the additives used back then aren't legal any more.

The barrel was sealed but when I got to the bottom there was some water probably from condensation getting by the seal. For what ever it's worth.

Billswan

[cognos]

In such small concentrations - 1 gallon every 100 miles or so - the additives in the diesel fuel itself would most likely be enough to stop any deposition that could be attributed to anything in the lubricating oil beong burned - and that's my point.

Modern low-ash lubricating oils will be less likely to cause trouble in this application.

As stated by others - burning used or even new lubrication oils at higher concentrations - such as are being used here in theses lister-style engines - is going to cause deposition problems. The deposits will be mineral ashes from the additives, metal amalgams from particulates in the oil fuel, and carbon - all forming an abrasive matrix.

Unless one can filter out *all* particulates from the WMO, and somehow filter out the additives and contaminants in it too, this is just the way it's going to be if you burn high WMO concentrations.

[cognos]

If there was water in the drum, that's a pretty good indicator that the oil is contaminated. After 30 years of contact with that water, it's anyone's guess as to what chemicals have been created/destroyed in that time... and what will happen if they are burned... certainly, the additive package will have failed by then, and it's possible acids have formed in the oil. Not good, in any case...

[listeroil]

Kerosene (central heating oil) is about half the price of RUG so you can put twice as much in for your money which gives you more fuel.

Kerosene is a lot thinner than regular diesel and almost tax free.

Kerosene was a recommended fuel by Listers in the 1930s and I quote  "Burning or Illuminating or Paraffin oil (Kerosene) may be used as a fuel but only if an admixture of 1/2 a pint of lubricating oil per 2 gallons of Paraffin is made."

The reason veg oil users use RUG instead of kerosene is because most people use it in cars and it is illegal to use kerosene in road vehicles because no tax has been paid on it. This does not matter for us because we use it for generating electricity and heating purposes.

Spencer who has lots of experience suggests 10 to 15 percent RUG in his mixture so using his method
100 litres WMO + 15 litres RUG =  115 litres =  £19.20 at todays price of £1.28 per litre.
100 litres WMO + 30 litres Kero =  130 litres =  £18.84 at todays price of  £0.628 per litre

Mick