Garage Diesel V Red Diesel

[RedRover]

As the price at the forecourts are not much different to the river price, I have wondered about this for awhile but could anyone tell me if you can use white Diesel in a newish diesel engine that uses Red Diesel at the mo, and would you get better performance out of it because it has more additives? Just wondered.

[andyfish]

Should be ok to use road fuel Barry,dont know about performance though

Andy

[Guest]

Iirc correctly red diesel has higher sulphur content. Sulphur has a lubricating effect (of sorts) like the lead component used to in petrol so, in theory, there are implications for some older marine engines if you start using low sulphur white diesel.

I couldn't tell you which engines might be affected though but I am sure David will be along shortly....

[Antares_9]

The short answer is yes you can use it Barry, red is different to the ULSD sold on forecourts though the two are much closer together now than they used to be. Red is still a bit higher in sulphur content and the cetane value is a little lower. The one thing that I have always found quite telling is that Webastos run on red, which is to say in boats and off road plant tend to give more problems than those in trucks run on ULSD. I doubt there would be any discernable performance improvement in the likes of a Perky or BMC 1500 apart from less smoke, but even that is a welcome bonus. As Simon says, there could be lube issues with pumps on older motors though.

[RedRover]

I have a 2 year old Nanni David which does not smoke using red but would be nice to use white in the Webasto heater.

[Antares_9]

Probably worth having a word with the Nanni guys then Barry, there may be some minor adjustments required though I doubt it, but better safe than sorry. If you do change to any different fuel, or indeed if you have done a DIY installation on a Webo then it is important that you get somebody like JPC to adjust the CO level in the exhaust, not a difficult job as all it consists of is adjusting the fan speed on older models or pulse rate on the newer ones, but quite impossible without an exhaust gas analyser which few of us have in our toolkit.

[C.Ricko]

why not just install another diesel tank for the webasto?

[Antares_9]

That's something I've been thinking of for some time Clive. Trouble is now of course in order to get the 60/40 split you need to run the heating on red. Still that’s no reason not to do it I guess. Even the bigger ones are quite frugal so a 2 gallon tank ought to be enough to last about 30 hours or more at full chat so combined with a spare 5 litre can to top up each weekend would do the job nicely.

[jimbo]

I assume if you install a separate tank for the heating, there is no reason why you couldn't purchase that fuel from a friendly farmer??

[C.Ricko]

hot water and lighting David?

it is only a tank, no one would fine you for paying the full duty i doubt..

[Guest]

The heater will run better on derv and not coke up as quickly as on red, but if you are fitting a separate tank why not run it on paraffin for a real clean burn.

Jonathan

[Guest]

Hi ya

Not sure what your heater is, but we have an Eberspacher D2 and it hates red diesel!!!

The recommendation from Panks who have maintained and repaired it is that we run it on full power (rather than on the stat) all of the time...and if we get too hot..he said open the windows!! Seriously.

But since following his advice the heather has been perfect. I am told that you dont get the same problem with webasto.

adam :

[C.Ricko]

Adam,

we bypass the stats on ours too they are either on or off, we found the Webastos sooted up whatever. We now only buy the Eberspachers and they seem fine on red.

I recon if you carried parafin on board the BSS would need harder work to keep in line.

[Antares_9]

I'd probably better not say anything otherwise it might tempt fate, but after regular decokes, burner replacements etc. I set the unit to run a bit leaner, this has resulted in the thing having run for longer than ever before without attention. After that no doubt the next time I strike it up all I will get is clouds of smoke.

Remember that the ex factory units and especially used ex BT units and the like are set for a relatively small trunking run in trucks or vans, the longer exhaust and trunking runs used in many boats causes greater back pressure than with a truck or van installation and it is important to adjust the unit to suit. The extra back pressure contributes quite a bit to the carboning up as it makes the burner run richer.

[Guest]

Garage v Red, £1.12 v £0.89 (Brooms last Saturday 60/40). £85.00 less of the hard earned.

Highly recommend Mikuni (http://www.mikuniheating.com/index.php?p=home) for anyone looking to change or install heating.

Phil