Quick eber fuel question

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Otter

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I know diesel is the standard fuel for an eberspacher, but is the alternative paraffin or kerosene?

Thanks,

Simon
 
pasta_simon said:
I know diesel is the standard fuel for an eberspacher, but is the alternative paraffin or kerosene?

Thanks,

Simon
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paraffin is fine,gives a hotter cleaner burn,so less fuel for a given temperature.

No knowledge of kero,but understood it to be a less refined paraffin.


According to google paraffin and kero are the same thing,but in UK easier to get it badged as paraffin anyway!
 
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Bosun Higgs said:
Can you just change over the fuel without changing jets or whatever? I know you cant on an oil boiler.
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The eber is a crude beast, there aint no jets or injectors, just a passageway, about 3 mm, thru the body that the fuel is pumped/dribbled thru to a gauze where it it is "dissipated" and turns to gas to burn, much like a tilley lamp mantle.
Stu
 
skipper_stu said:
The eber is a crude beast, there aint no jets or injectors, just a passageway, about 3 mm, thru the body that the fuel is pumped/dribbled thru to a gauze where it it is "dissipated" and turns to gas to burn, much like a tilley lamp mantle.
Stu
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Some people(myself among them) reckon that a couple of gallons of paraffin now and again gives the internals and exhaust a good "burn through" and removes carbon deposits in the exhaust. It's why I fitted a separate tank.
 
djbreeze said:
Pardon my ignorance but how much is paraffin and where can you buy it?
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Premium, lamp paraffin can be purchased in 4ltr. pre-packs from many hardware outlets, but is expensive at around £6 or more. The days of purchasing it "loose" at low cost are virtually gone.
Slightly lower grade however, 28 sec. oil, is a common central heating fuel, about 35p/ltr for bulk supply. This doesn't burn quite so cleanly.
I use either in my Wallas paraffin heater.
 
earlybird said:
Premium, lamp paraffin can be purchased in 4ltr. pre-packs from many hardware outlets, but is expensive at around £6 or more. The days of purchasing it "loose" at low cost are virtually gone.
Slightly lower grade however, 28 sec. oil, is a common central heating fuel, about 35p/ltr for bulk supply. This doesn't burn quite so cleanly.
I use either in my Wallas paraffin heater.
Click to expand...

Thankyou, I like the sound of 35p/l...
 
pasta_simon said:
I know diesel is the standard fuel for an eberspacher, but is the alternative paraffin or kerosene?

Thanks,

Simon
Click to expand...
Just for the record, the heavier the fuel the bigger the bang, simplistically speaking, so all the talk about "hotter cleaner burn" et al, is not quite right. Red diesel is 35sec oil, heating oil is 28sec oil. The sec value indicates the viscosity, it is a measure of how fast an oil flows thru a std sized hole at a set temp. The higher the number the greater the viscosity, the higher the viscosity the "heavier" it is and more power is generated from higher viscosity oils. ONE! of the reasons that diesel gives better MPG than petrol. The helos we used in Angola, would operate on diesel in emergencies BUT full "throttle" couild never be used because the diesel would damage the turbine from overheat1
Red diesel is not so refined as white diesel, it contains/contained sulphurs and other compounds, the sulphur, when burned with the diesel, has the effect of producing more power (dont forget weight and viscosity) BUT produces acids which can damage the engine.
SO
if you run on paraffin/heating oil/kerosene (and the words mean different things thru out the world) you can get a cleaner burn, in as much as there are no sulphurs etc in it BUT it certainly wont burn hotter!! Simple physics sees to that!
There are a lot of urban myths out there and peeps repeat them ad infinitum without thinking things thru!
Stu
PS My local garage sells "kerosene" out of a pump on the forecourt as well as red diesel. I suspect the "kerosene" is 28sec heating oil (65p a litre at the mo). Kerosene to America is paraffin as we knew it but also describes Jet A1, a mixture of "light fuel oil" and naptha.
 
Ludd said:
Some people(myself among them) reckon that a couple of gallons of paraffin now and again gives the internals and exhaust a good "burn through" and removes carbon deposits in the exhaust. It's why I fitted a separate tank.
Click to expand...
Ahh, the urban myth rearing its ugly head.
Stu
 
Hmm I have followed this thread and it raises a question to me, (my simple mind)

Can I use Paraffin in my Volvo 2020 engines instead of Diesel?

My dad used to mix Paraffin and diesel to run the old Massey Ferg tractor.

Peter
 
[QUOTE
Can I use Paraffin in my Volvo 2020 engines instead of Diesel?
Peter[/QUOTE]

The engine would run, but you almost certainly risk expensive damage to the injection system due to lower lubricity of paraffin, although a reasonably lowish percentage mix might be OK. A bit of lube oil mixed in might help. I'm not going to try it though!
I'd be very surprised if a Tilley Lamp ran on diesel without a lot of smoke and smell. Heaters/lamps venting to enclosed spaces should run on PREMIUM paraffin.
 
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Diesel/Kero/Paraffin

The two above are just taking the wee I think. AllanJ I think you know from experience that Tilly lamps are susceptible to sooting with paraffin, Heaven knows what mess diesel would make.
Rivona if you run your Volvo on paraffin please have a spare engine in a cradle waiting to be dropped in when the old engine goes futtttt.
I concur with skipper Stu, diesel burns hotter than kero and paraffin ( 35 second and 28 second respectively ). Kero/paraffin are the same for our purposes.
With regard to adding paraffin to diesel as your dear Father did rivona, this was a practise for stopping the diesel waxing in very cold weather, now no longer necessary with winter additives put in by the oil companies from November on.
 
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rivonia said:
Hmm I have followed this thread and it raises a question to me, (my simple mind)

Can I use Paraffin in my Volvo 2020 engines instead of Diesel?

My dad used to mix Paraffin and diesel to run the old Massey Ferg tractor.

Peter
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The old trick was to mix half a pint of straight 30 engine oil per gallon of paraffin. It worked ok on a tranny van.
Going back to my earlier post, get some red diesel in a glass jar, swill it around, you can see the "oiliness" of it, then rub it between your fingers, slightly greasy. Then get some road diesel and do the same, its a lot "lighter", more "squeaky". Paraffin was always "squeaky"
Now get some heating oil, again "squeaky" but perhaps not as squeaky as paraffin.
Now red is 35sec, heating oil is 28sec, I dont know what paraffin is! have tried googling BUT the names have become so intertwined that I suspect that what we can buy as paraffin nowadays is actually heating oil, i.e the manufacturers cant be arsed to produce in quantity any more and so we end up buying EXPENSIVE deodorised, slightly more riefined oil to us as paraffin.
To answer the question, I suspect that 28sec heating oil would do the trick to run a diesel on direct, it would certainly run on it! ( In fact a diesel will run on any oil as long as you can pump it thru the system.) HOWEVER if I was going to do it I would cut it 50/50 with red diesel to make sure it was lubey enough for my expensive diesel parts.
Stu
 
AllanJ said:
not just me that remembers Tilley lamps then?
Does this mean taht I could run one on diesel? :)
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It would be smokey on start I suspect, I talked about Tilley Lamps, my dad used to use them when he worked on the markets and fairs, we had an ex army 7.5 ton Bedford, no heater, off to the markets, Wrexham to Llanrwst on a Tuesday. leave at 6.00am, fire the Tilley up in the cab to keep us warm!
Wilbur Smith talks about Petromaxes, they were still around in Angola when I was there, same thing but running on petroleo, Pork for paraffin.
I have now a Coleman, twin mantle, running on petrol, wonderful evocative light, a comforting hiss, taking me back to childhood plus, allegedly, 3kw of heat, ahhhhhhh!
Stu
 
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