Nigel Goodwin

You need to be aware of the SERIOUS legal complications in the UK, it's OK off the road, but for on road use you may fall foul of evading paying the tax on the road diesel!.

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bryan1

Well over here in Oz they sell biodiesel at the pump and it's about 5 cents a litre cheaper than real diesel. When I talked with the SA director he said well govt tax takes over 80% of the take and we just go over breaking even. Well the ****heads that voted the liberals 10 years ago voted for Oz losing the title of being the lucky country. Now we're the most overtaxed dictorship in the world and we'll soon be the next yankie state. Atleast here on the farm we can still do what we want but I wonder for how long. Well atleast I'm not connected to the grid so I'm considered in the back waters but I'm only 50 K's from Adelaide the SA capital go figure!!!!

Cheers Bryan

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Nigel Goodwin

In the UK there's 'red diesel', which is untaxed (or only lightly taxed), and only for use in farms and quarries (basically off road). The dye that makes it red is EXTREMELY persistent, a drop of red diesel in a normal diesel tank will stain it for months, and is easily detected. Penalties for using red diesel are fairly stiff, and using homemade biodiesel has similar penalties. Spot checks are reasonably regular, but basically aimed at known offenders - or people in a position to freely obtain red diesel.

A friend of mine has recently had to give a statement to the police, because a friend of his ran out of diesel and borrowed an empty jerry can (4 gallons) from him. The guy was being prosecuted weeks later because a test showed the presence of red diesel in the tank - the empty jerry can had been used for red diesel at some time (actually for a grass mower). My friends statement cleared him, as the story was consistent with the level of dye in the tank.

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Nigel Goodwin

Just a sudden thought - with all this talk of different fuels?.

Anyone remember TVO (Tractor Vapourising Oil), which was a cheap and nasty paraffin product. Old tractors had two tanks, one petrol and one TVO, you started the engine on petrol, but once it was warm switched over to TVO, which was a LOT cheaper (like red diesel).

As kids we used to have an old pickup truck (Ford Popular) we used to run round the fields - we disconnected the fuel tank and replaced it with two mootorcycle tanks in the back - one with petrol, one with TVO - used to work fine, and we could 'steal' TVO from a big tank on the farm (we had to buy the petrol).

Note though, it's a VERY low octane fuel - not suitable for modern engines.

We used to mix it in the petrol on old motorbikes as well (Norton, BSA, Matchless etc.) which stretched the small amount of petrol we could afford.

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penoy_balut

There's a guy in the Phils. who runs his car with water.

Nigel Goodwin

It's the same guy who lies all the time!.

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bryan1

Well Nigel,
I have heard a claim where an Aussie designed a car motor to run on water, it was back in the 60's but apparntley the black coats paid him a visit and it hasn't been heard of since. My father-in-law who is into vintage cars told me about it and showed me the article he had in his scrapbook and when I asked him opnion on the claim it said it was done but in his knowledge he didn't know how and he is a retired industrial chemist from the old school. I have asked him if I can scan the article and he said bluntly NO leave dead dogs alone.

Cheers Bryan

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" The only way to avoid human error is to avoid the use of humans"

Nigel Goodwin

There have been many such claims over many decades, yet no one has ever been able to show a working example! - those that have tried have been easily shown to be fraudulent.

The usual 'excuse' is that it was working perfectly, but people from the oil companies bought it and supressed it - what a load of rubbish!.

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bryan1

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philba

This area (alternate auto fuels) is a favorite of conspiracy theorists. The evil super secret government agency supressed the research. The evil oil companies bought the patent and are sitting on it so they can sell more oil. The second gunman killed the inventor, stole the prototype and stashed it in area 51 next to the alien corpses.

I don't know what is more amazing, the stories they make up or that so many people want to believe them.

Hero999

Who's going to know?

It isn't red desel which stains the engine.

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Nigel Goodwin

They do tests! - it's VERY actively policed, you need to be careful in the UK.

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hotwaterwizard

City Busses run on propane. So do PG&E Trucks.

http://www.fourwheeler.com/brandpage...s_for_diesels/

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fjesko

Getting back to the thread origin, there was a Cummins business in Clovis, NM about 20 years ago that did just that. They converted N series Cummins truck diesel engines to run on natural gas. I never was interested enough back then to ask the details of the conversion. They replaced the injectors with spark plugs and the injector pump with some sort of distributor or magneto but I don't remember if they altered the normal @15:1 compression ratio. With the high octane rating of CNG, it shouldn't have been a problem to leave it alone. I believe they capped the works with an IMPCO mixer/throttle body.

As for the conspiracy theorists: a couple of high school buddies worked in a General Motors garage where one of those 40mpg full sized Oldsmobiles was confiscated in the early '70s. The "black suits" gave the reason that it was an experimental prototype and it wasn't EPA approved for road use. I personally saw an electric car that subsequently "disappeared" in the early '80s and my Dad rode in a water powered car about the time the blokes in OZ and half of Europe were using firewood to power their autos. The car and it's owner "disappeared". All his friends and neighbors remembered it well but even close relatives didn't know what became of him, his wife and sons, or the car.

Not that the US Govt would have any involvement in protecting oil interests

philba

On the first point, they would have had to change the compression ratio since diesel works by compressing the fuel/air mixture to the point where the heat is above the ignition point. NG/air mix combusts at a much lower temp and thus would cause problems for the engine. The more I've investigated, I think diesel to NG conversion is impractical.

On the second paragraph. Yeah, sure, whatever. plus there was second gunman on the grassy knoll, there really are aliens being held in area 51 and the tooth fairy is real.