Club 80-90 Forums

Mixing a small amount of petrol with diesel was common place in the olden days, my dad did it when he was a truck driver and never blew up!

Funny. My 1979 VW Rabbit (Golf) owner's manual actually tells you to mix one part gasoline petrol to 5 parts diesel and has a chart for winter use.

That is interesting, considering any area with a climate cold enough to need non-jell/waxing diesel sells it so their customers can drive with it. I have seen a few cases of waxing and they have been with vehicles that drove from warm to cold climate without refueling or had been fueled in summer and were still using same fuel when winter came.

I've seen engines destroyed from trying to use petrol/diesel mixes. Flash point of petrol is -42, diesel is +62. Petrol is ignited by spark from timed ignition, and if octane rating is too low will ping.(self ignite before spark) burning pistons and head, breaking pieces off of pistons. This will happen below 9:1 compression ratio. Diesel ignites by compression at about 20:1 compression ratio from timed injection. Running petrol mix in a diesel,will damage injectors, pistons and pumps. Petrol has no lubricant in it, diesel is a lubircant. Some military vehicles are multifuel and will run on petrol or diesel or a mix. These engines are built to do both. Normal street engines are not.

Titus A Duxass wrote:Mixing a small amount of petrol with diesel was common place in the olden days, my dad did it when he was a truck driver and never blew up!

Key word here are "olden days". Modern engines are much more sensitive.

Lee, you can use additives like waxbuster: http://www.kamco.co.uk/diesel.htm" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; Your local farm supplier probably has something similar as farm fuel tanks are often filled in summer and need additive for winter. Get and carry a small container with in van so you have some to add when needed. Amsoil sells this: http://www.performanceoilsltd.co.uk/ams ... rover.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

We have a gas heater and like it. That said, the petrol and diesel units are very good. Diesel use less fuel as diesel has more btu in it then petrol... petrol more then gas.... but the prices of each is also less.

Lee, i have taken some pictures of my syncro doka for you. This is how VW does it.

first of all this is the heater matrix under the back seat (the silver box next to the kipping bag)



have a look i would have thought one was in unless it was fitted after by some previous owner. Sometimes when they pack up people take the pipes of and connect them together to bypass it so even if it has been removed you still may have the pipework still their.

The switch to control it is the one the same as the normal heater switch but fitted nearest the steering wheel seen here,



The switch on the top of the moulded steering column cover is for the heated seats. I know i didn't have to point this out but i'm a fhookin show off

This next picture is of a digital ebber timer with three settings. It was fitted to the van when i bought it but had never been wired in. I took a bit of info from Mocki and installed it in 10 minutes. I think Mocki has one for sale at the moment.



The operation of it now is that if its cold i let it run for an hour with the rear heater on low when i get in the van. I then fall asleep and can set the timer to come on in the night to give it a top up blast to keep the van warm and then pop it on in the morning when i wake up. I tried it out last night along with my westy R&R bed i just fitted in a pub carpark after a few pints and slept that well i squeezed in a couple of hours green laning at dusk before going home. Good thing is you start the engine in a morning and its warm too.

The reason mine has all this stuff is it was imported from the north of Sweden.

Hope this helps

jed

thanks guys, good links lloyd i`ve bookmarked them cheers.

thanks for your efforts jed looks like the doka is super snug with you, have you got the webasto bbw46 in yours and have you looked in to wireing it to run continiously. it seems from what i`ve been reading that the bt van eber`s only run for 1 hour and auto switch off and there`s a fix for this with a simple switch. i wonder if the bbw46 can be made to behave the same way and run the eber 7 day timer too.

..lee.. wrote:thanks guys, good links lloyd i`ve bookmarked them cheers.

thanks for your efforts jed looks like the doka is super snug with you, have you got the webasto bbw46 in yours and have you looked in to wiring it to run continuously. it seems from what i`ve been reading that the bt van eber`s only run for 1 hour and auto switch off and there`s a fix for this with a simple switch. i wonder if the bbw46 can be made to behave the same way and run the eber 7 day timer too.

You can fit a relay to bypass the one hour thing. I did it to the diesel bt ebber i have in my 2wd camper. I did it years ago and again Mocki told me how to. Cant remember what he said with it being so long ago so you best ask him. Have a look on the wiki, the picture explaining the ebber fitting is the one i did on my van. I haven't done it to the doka because the cab is so small it keeps well warm anyway really.

If you have all the webasto stuff in the van you would be daft not to use it.

I could

jed

ok i think you`ve convinced me and saved my a load of money too i`ll get a similar setup to yours working in the back and see how it goes from there. wiki looks down at the min so i`ll have a study of the heating thread when it gets back on, hopefully mocki will help me out when i`m ready


have a good xmas all ..lee..