Diesel or Not Diesel?? Heartland Holiday Happening

[Steve Proctor]

Thought I'd pass something along that happened to me at the Heartland Holiday.

In the midst of one of the drives, darted out of line into a BP gas station for a quick splash. In a hurry, I surveyed the pumps and grabbed the black handle pump, knowing that green handles are reserved for diesel. Put in a quick four gallons, grabbed the receipt and jumped back into the car. Don't know what possessed me to look at the receipt, but I did and noticed it read four gallons of diesel.

I went inside and the girl confirmed that at BP, the colors are reversed - green handle pumps are gasoline and black handle pumps are diesel. Luckily, I had not started the car and the float bowls were still full of gasoline. Don't know if other HH attendees saw my plight or just pulled in, but a small crowd gathered and after Jeff Leas put in a quick call to Patrick Doolittle back in AZ, we determined that the only viable approach was to siphon out the contents of the tank and refill with gasoline.

I went to a hardware store across the street and got the only tubing they had (a 25 foot garden hose) and a 5 gallon bucket. I cut the hose to a usable length and with the help of those that had stopped and a local diesel mechanic, siphoned out the contents of the tank, then cleaned out the rest with a towel and paper towels. Refilled the tank and at the recommendation of the diesel mechanic added a can of Seafoam.

Fired the car up and it ran as if nothing had happened. I did, however get diesel fuel on my hands, clothes and shoes, a couple of the helpers did as well and the diesel mechanic got a mouthful of diesel for his trouble. For those that helped, please accept my undying gratitude. The stabilizing influence and assistance was much, very much appreciated. I have come to know that I am not the only person that this has ever happened to, for instance my 356 friend Larry Ashton says that some of his employees have done the opposite, gasoline in a diesel tank with the expected deleterious results.

Had I not been in a hurry to get back onto the tour, I probably would have noticed, but in my haste, did not check the pumps carefully.

[Dan Epperly]

What do you expect from the British? The also drive on the wrong side of the road.

[Thomas Sottile]

I did the same thing a bunch of years ago on my way to a 356 Holiday I put about 2 gals in, when I realized it I spoke to the attendant who was an old diesel man, he said with just two gal of diesel will not hurt if you fill the rest up with gasoline. So that is what I did, I got better mileage. smelled funny.

[Charles H Jacobus]

Good fortune!!

ChuckJ

[Vic Skirmants]

I had a customer do that and melted one cylinder head.

[Mike Horton]

I had a daughter completely fill the tank, on our 49 year family owned 289 Mustang V8, and throttled it out just enough, to have it stall in the public street across from the station. I was at work, and decided to think this through, as I'd be working alone. I rounded up a 35 Gal. clean drum, a 1 Gal. can of 100 Oct. avgas (all I had), a spare 12V electric Bendix can style fuel pump, jumper leads, several sizes of rubber fuel hose, and tools. When I got to the car, I raised the hood, found where the fuel line to the carburetor connected at an in-line fuel filter, hooked the hose from the 1 Gal. avgas can to the carb feed line, through the electric pump, ran another hose from the fuel pump out line, into the empty drum, got the engine started, and while letting the engine idle, watched the engine driven fuel pump, pump the diesel from the car's tank, into the drum. I loaded the drum, avgas can, electrical fuel pump, jumpers, tools, etc., drove the car across the street, and filled the tank with fresh 10% ethanol. We still have the car, and there was no deleterious effect, ...except the ordeal, of educating a teenager, on the potential damage, and, she was impressed with the process. My Dad always taught me not to be bound by convention,

[Jeffrey Leeds]

Steve, I discovered the same thing this past weekend while on the Southern Drive in Helen, GA.

We have two diesel Cayenne's so I am very use to pulling up to the green handles for diesel fuel. In this case I drove my 356 up to the BP pumps and couldn't locate a "gasoline" pump because all the BP pump handles were green. I asked an attendant to confirm that I was actually getting gasoline from the green handle pumps. I have told my wife to avoid all BP stations to avoid the confusion.

Why is it that the Brits. do everything backwards? First it was positive grounds, and now they label their gasoline pump handles the opposite of our standards.

- Jeff

[Craig Richter]

I did the same thing a few years ago, but in reverse. We have an older BMW X5 diesel in Austria, and were on our way up to Belgium to visit friends. Filled up just outside Antwerp because the gas stations are a bit difficult in town. After a few kilometers the poor thing started to run terribly. Obvious that I grabbed the wrong nozzle, but luckily were very near our friend's house... and they have kids. Bijorn found some hose and a bucket, got a mouthful of nasty stuff, and in a few minutes had the bad fuel into his old VW gas-burner. We limped a couple of blocks to a hidden gas station he knew about, and after a few more blocks our BMW was running fine again. He was happy to get a free tankful (gas is expensive over there) and said his car ran fine on the contaminated fuel, but he needed several beers to kill the nasty taste.

[Martin Benade]

My father once (a long time ago) was having vapor-lock troubles on a hot day, and being a physicist he knew enough about vapor pressure to add a gallon of diesel fuel to his full tank of gasoline. It didn't hurt the car, and it didn't vapor-lock.

[Bob Forman]

I'm glad I'm not the only one who has made this mistake. One of my post retirement gigs was that of operating a tool truck. One day after my route I filled up with diesel (or so I thought) and by the time I got home the thing was running poorly and blowing white smoke. When I realized what I had done I got a couple of 5 gallon cans and my siphon tube and began the process. But what do you do with 35 gallons of gas? I filled my VW van to the brim, siphoned some more and filled my Pathfinder. Waited for my wife to get home and filled her car. By the time I had done all this the two cans contained the rest. Then, of course, had to drain and change the filters. I didn't bleed the engine thinking there was still some mix in it and it would probably run long enough to suck up the good stuff. Of course, I had to buy a third can and get fresh diesel in it so it had fuel to fill the filter bowls and have some in the tank. It coughed for a while but ran fine after that.

[David Jones]

With reference to the reverse of adding gasoline to diesel I was advised by GM to do exactly that in 82 when living in Chicago. Unfortunately my wife inherited a diesel Oldsmobile, if you only remember them and did not own one count yourself fortunate. Chicago gets cold winters and the olds did not have a heated tank or fuel lines or a filter so as soon as it got colder than average the fuel turned to something with a viscosity like warm peanut butter and consequently the engine would not start. As I was in the throes of developing an analyzer to measure the point where diesel fuel becomes unusable so new a little about the situation regarding fuel usability at low temps I called GM to see if they had a solution. I was told to add 2 gallons of gasoline to every tankful and that would allow the fuel to flow so the engine would run. Needless to say I disregarded their advice and only drove the car on warmer days until I could dump it. Even running well it was so slow my VW bug could make the round trip to work before I got there once.

[Bob Forman]

Remember back in the 50's and 60's there was a carb cleaner call Bardahl? We used to pour a can of that through the carb, smoke up the neighborhood and think it was doing its job. John Miur who wrote Keeping Your VW Alive recommended instead of Bardahl to use diesel to do the same thing.

[Jules Dielen]

all over europe and russia the diesel nozzles are black and the unleaded nozzles are green. South africa is same. Bp just went with the euro setup in US.why does the US always have to do it dfferently?

[Ron LaDow]

Am I out of line in noting that every station I've ever seen in the US and otherwise had the fuel grade and application stated clearly somewhere on the pump? And that reading that bit of information really isn't asking much?
Steve, you're a great guy, but....

[David Jones]

The reference to the rest of the worlds usage of a standard black and green coloring for fuel pumps is in line with the reluctance of the US to accept the metric system of measurement. We, Liberia and Myanmar are the holdouts in converting to the metric system. It is so much easier to run the numbers when you are working on a decimal system one would have thought the US would have been all over it back in the late 70's when it was first tried. I remember when I first started to reside in theUS in 1980 that gas pumps already had liters as measurements and roads had Km signs as well as miles. I often wonder why it failed.