Adding Kerosene to Gasoline

[Va Gasman]

45 years ago when I was a kid at home we had a nieghbor that added kerosene to each tank of gas he used in tractors for field use.He had a JD 60 and he added about 1-1/2 gals to a tank of gas. I knew another person that had JD's and he was a JD mechanic for 30 yrs he did the same when he ran thresher on "D". I never knew anyone to use it on Red tractors. Dad said if we tried it the tractor might not start cold. I went by His instructions as taught.
I was told that keorsene can add power, lubricate and preserve fuel quality. What are your thoughts?
 

[David G]

No, no and no.

Run the appropriate gasoline.
 

[John B.]

One thing to consider is. When mixing two flammable liquids the container better be marked as what's inside. Some body could get seriously injured or killed.
Some old tractors ran on both but had seperate tanks for gas and kerosene. These people that grew up in this era see no harm in mixing the two. Because they had kerosene left over and when needed they just mixed it with the gas to use it up when gasoline was the main fuel source as technology changed. It's kind of like me, we have a DVD player but also have a DVD/VCR combo so I can still play my old tractor videos I have on tape.
 

[k.s.tractor]

Back in the '70's I had to make a trip with my 67 Chev 3/4t 292 that would take more than the 1/2 tank of gas that I had so I dumped in the 5gal of kerosene that I had for my nipco.It worked OK so I kept adding more kerosene to the mix until it was more than 50/50.The 292 was junk when I started and I was building a 478Toro-flow diesel to replace it so told the guys I was getting the truck ready for the change over to diesel. It took a lot of choking to start but seemed like a big saving with Kerosene at 17cents and gas going out of sight at $.35
 

[Va Gasman]

Dad also told me that during WWII he had an old ford T or A I don't remember. He could only get 3 gals gas a week and he could get 2 gals kerosene. he added the 2 gals of kerosene and he says it ran fine with a little more smoke and he got a lot more travel. this ended when he got drafted in 45.
 

[El Toro]

I dumped about about a gallon of K1 into this old 1981 Cougar each time I used it to get rid of the K1. It has that 302 engine and with 500 pounds of shelled corn in the trunk it ran fine. The car was bought new by wife's sister and when it had 15k miles on it my BIL told her to get rid of it in 1985. We bought it and it only has 56k miles now. Has always been garaged. Hal

 

[El Toro]

My mother worked at a defense plant during WW2 making 20 mm ammo and she got extra gas stamps for working there also got tires. My wife's mother worked there too. Hal
 

[John G. Hasler]

> What are your thoughts?

It"ll lower the octane and so might cause some engines to knock. Might get you more hours per gallon as kerosene is denser than gasoline but it won"t improve performance.
 

[jbp]

Never heard of adding kerosene to gasoline, we did sometimes use a little gasoline added to kerosene or tractor fuel to reduce detonation when pulling heavy loads with an all fuel tractor. A couple gallons of gasoline in a twenty gallon tank of kerosene would stop so called spark knock. Joe
 

[John M]

Dad use to add half a tank of gas to our M, then top it off with diesel and kerosene. Kero and diesel were cheaper back then. That thing would run sometimes 24 hours no stop, not on the same tank of course, but my uncle would be on it in the mornings until I got home from school, Id get on about 3 in the afternoon, and dad would show up about 7 or 8 with fuel and he would go until my uncle came back early the next morning. That was cultivating mostly.
 

[glennster]

i have an old tractor maintenance and repair guide from 1942. kerosene was added to gasoline, they recommend 2 to 3 gallons of kero per tank of fuel every 150 to 200 hours to remove gum deposits from valve stems.
 

[Leroy]

Every once in a while would put a couple of gallons of kerosine in the tractors with a full tank. These were gas tractors. Did not notice any change in power but would clean up the black in the muffler and also clean up the spark plugs when they were starting to get black sooty. With the led free did not notice things as much. Starting in 74 led free was all that was avaible as that was when the new cars started requiring it and the gas company did not add extra tanks but it was several years before we found out we were running lead free but never any problems with it. Just that the kerosine cleaned up the black soot. Was always under a heavy load when we did this.
 

[Ron W]

Well, we used to burn fuel oil in the old farmhouse; converted it to nat gas in 1983. Not having any diesels on the farm, we still had over 500 gals left. I put 5 gals of gas, to 4 gals of diesel, to 1 gal of paper filters used oil. Dump that in the old regulars. I start them on the gas starting tank, and once hot, switch over the mix. Man, do they have power. The trick is you need to have them at RPM, not at idle. I buzz all the firewood, disk, plow, etc. with them. It saves on bucks as those old regulars go through alot of fuel.
 

[rustred]

what do you mean no? definitly a yes! any lubricity added to gas will decrease valve guide wear for example.
 

[Tom Fleming]

I personally would not put kerosene in anything newer than a Letter series tractor. compression and overall ignition settings of the newer gasoline engines will NOT like it. Kerosene also burns hotter than gasoline, and if the compression ratio is not right, detonation will burn your pistons and valves up in a heartbeat.

With that said, yes, kerosene in a lower compression engine will not hurt anything......remember, there tractors were designed to run "duel fuel", but they had specific configurations such as lower compression ratios, radiator shutters, exhaust manifold redirection butterfly valves, etc. etc etc. An engine designed to run on Kerosene will do just fine, IF up to temp....if not, you will just dilute your oil. Refer to the "dipstick" thread......that is why there were 3 draincocks on the oil pans. Now, if you want to add a quart of oil to a tank of gas, that is a whole other consideration. Many manuals indicate to add some oil to fuel in specific situations, and while you run the risk of fouling plugs if you go overboard, the residual lubrication effects can be beneficial (if you can put up with the additional smoke in the exhaust).

if your tractor is tuned correctly for gasoline, run gasoline in it. While you are not going to hurt anything in the letter or F series doing this, you are also not going to accomplish anything significantly "positive" by doing it (meaning adding kerosene). today's gas runs "cleaner" from a combustion perspective because there is no lead to leave deposits in the combustion and intake/exhaust components. This thread may become hotly contested as it grows, so I have stated my perspective and will leave it at that........