[Everlandfarm]

Hi Folks,

A guy I work with has an interesting situation. His son was going to mow the lawn and somehow put kerosene in the gas tank. It's a new Craftsman walk behind mower.

I'm a little out of my depth on this one. I said he should drain the gas, change the oil and replace the plug and go from there. Probably disassembling the carb wouldn't be a bad idea, but not sure of his mechanical talents and as it's "new" there may not be a lot to diassemble anyway. Further suggested removing the plug and doing a lot of cranking to try to get as much out as possible. Suggested changin oil as I recall that kerosene is very "gritty" and if it died and the kid kept cranking on it it may have worked it's way down to the crankcase so that wouldn't be good.

Any ideas?

Be well,

Ev

 

[jeepersmitty]

Just drain the tank. Prime the carb with a little gas and crank it up. It will clear out the remaining kerosene in a few rounds. It will not harm the engine.

 

[davidg]

kero is like diesel, it will jsut clean everything real good. sure, the thing will smoke for a little while until the kero all burns off, but no harm. all he needs to do is what jeepersmitty said, drain teh tank and prime the carb.

 

[Simon Smith]

:ditto: :ditto: :ditto:

Most petrol engines will run happpily on parafin or kerosene once they are hot anyway, so a little mixed with the petrol won't hurt a bit.

 

[Exto]

I ran an old Olds on kerosene up to the gas station once, shouldn't hurt too bad for a short time at least.

 

[Everlandfarm]

All is well, tank was drained, fresh gas put in, shot of starting fluid in carb and away she went!!

I remembered that the old farm tractors were originally set up with a "starting tank" usually a couple of gallons for gas and kero or "distillate" was put in the main tank. The engine was started on gas, after it warmed up the gas was valved out and the kero valved in.

We had a Farmall M until a couple of years ago which had two "petcocks" on the side of the oil pan. The top most one was opened when adding oil and when it came out of there it was full. After a day of running on kero the lower petcock was opened (about an inch below the upper one) and the top most oil was drained out. Closing the lower petcock and opening the top most fresh oil was added. I'm guessing that kero being abrasive "something" worked it's way down onto the surface of the oil? Guess that's where I got the idea that the oil should be changed. We never ran it on kero, the starting tank was long gone when we bought it. I think it was a '41 or '42. At least that's the way I remember it being explained to me when I was a kid back in the 50's....

Thanks,

EV

Ev