How to dilute diesel fuel with kerosene?
Content
What will get worse?
An increased percentage of kerosene in winter diesel fuel is undesirable: after all, lubrication characteristics deteriorate. Hence - increased wear of the fuel pump of the car. The reason is that kerosene contains more aromatic hydrocarbons and less heavier oils. If you add moderately, then the quality of the pump will not suffer much. In extreme cases, you will have to replace the rings and other sealing elements ahead of time.
Undesirable consequences can be eliminated by adding a certain amount of engine or transmission oil to kerosene (in the latter case, those oils that are recommended for automatic transmissions should be preferred). But this is already a cocktail with unpredictable consequences for engine valves.
Since the ignition of a mixture containing kerosene occurs at higher temperatures, the thermal resistance of the rings will decrease sharply.
What will improve?
How much kerosene to add to diesel fuel in winter also depends on the established temperatures of the outside air. Kerosene is a liquid with a lower viscosity, therefore, thickening of diesel fuel with the addition of kerosene will occur at lower temperatures. The effect will be especially noticeable from -20ºC and below. The rule of thumb is that adding up to ten percent of kerosene to diesel will result in a five-degree drop in the thermal plugging point of the filter. Therefore, in really cold climatic conditions, such a procedure is advisable.
The second plus for such an operation is the reduction of environmentally harmful engine emissions. Everything is clear here: kerosene burns “cleaner”, without leaving behind a sooty deposit inside the car’s exhaust pipe.
In what cases should it be diluted?
Mainly for winter diesel fuel. In this case, the ignition quality will change little, even when 20% and even 50% are added to diesel fuel. True, experts advise producing such combinations only with heavy trucks. Less capricious nodes are installed there, for which a slight decrease in lubricity is not critical.
The increased dose of kerosene in diesel fuel should be the greater, the lower the temperature outside the window. For -10º10% of kerosene will be enough, but each decrease in ambient temperature by one degree will automatically increase the need for kerosene by 1 ... 2%.
What happens to the cetane number?
Recall that a decrease in the cetane number of fuel (up to 40 and below) is guaranteed to affect the quality of ignition. Therefore, before diluting diesel fuel with kerosene, it is necessary to establish the actual cetane number of the fuel that your car was filled with at the service station. Ignition delay is not the most pleasant factor when driving in winter.
There are also a number of general warnings:
- Make sure that the canister contains kerosene (set by the color of the handle, for kerosene it is blue).
- Check with the recommendations of the manufacturer of diesel fuel and the vehicle itself: is this allowed.
- Some two-stroke engines (eg CITROEN BERLINGO First) can run on pure kerosene. True, we are talking about high-density kerosene.
- On cars where a computer is installed that is responsible for the viscosity of the final mixture (in particular, for Mazda twin-Cab cars), the engine will not start at all if the diesel contains even a little kerosene. Conclusion: not worth the risk.
And the last thing - never store diesel fuel and kerosene in containers whose colors do not correspond to these hydrocarbon classes!
