burning other lubricants

[panteramatt]

I have a stockpile of new gear oil, hydraulic oil, tranny fluid. Can I safely burn any of these in my 03 without damaging anything?

 

[2004LB7]

If you can thin it to more closely match the viscosity of D2 they should work. I've used all of what you have but in a common rail. Used a little RUG to thin it down. The ATF worked the best requiring the least thinning. Then hydraulic fluid and lastly gear oil. You may want to only start with a few gallons and the rest diesel and see how it run. Then slowly add more as you use it up. For me, I was able to run a full tank of ATF/RUG, about a 50/50 mix of diesel and hydraulic/RUG and maybe a few gallons of gear oil/RUG.

I would like to think your 03 would handle it better than my 09. Let us know how it goes

 

[Mongler98]

selling it on marketplace would gain you much more $ than some fuel savings and mud fuel. if its new, sell it. otherwise dump it a the landfill recycling center! im am NOT one to advocate using anything other than proper fuel unless you know what your doing with veg oil and that's about as far as i go. Plenty of people do it thought but all the ones i know personally who have done it, never had it running for more than a few years, cummins, to TDI's they all had issues but hard to tell if it was user error or neglect. either way, not worth the few cents to me. if its worth a few pennies now, go for it. times are rough, but they cant be that tough if you have a running car right???

 

[rocky raccoon]

Roger Mongler. Our cars have Diesel engines designed for Diesel fuel. Using anything else is asking for trouble. Anything up to peanut butter can probably be used but not efficiently and not for long without gumming up your engine/fuel system.

 

[2004LB7]

You guys are no fun

 

[Mongler98]

i'm all for using what's around if it comes down to it. but when it comes to an investment, like a car, i try and make my $ count as long as they can. this means not burning through fuel filters and nozzles. Not that using these oils will damage them. infact if its done correctly, mixing oil is a good thing if its adding back sulfur to the mix for older TDI's that was designed for non low sulfur fuel. The $ saved though is not worth my time though. i only have so much time to work on things like my up and coming welding buisness, my 944 TDI swap, family, motorbikes, and so on. i do not want to spend more time on another project that could EASILY be solved with 5 minutes at a fuel station and my credit card.

point is, if its a project your willing to take on, do it right, probably nothing bad will happen with clean new oils, but what's the point? sell it for more $ on FB marketplace.

I consider fun, doing autocross and not messing around trying to save $0.05 a tank when im blowing 90% of the $ i have in my auto budget on tires. RE71's are $$$ and i was lucky to get 30 events out of them, like 300 miles!

 

[[486]]

gear oil's gonna stink bad
all of them will burn just about exactly same as diesel
viscosity's higher so your transfer pump will be working a little harder (you'll lose injection advance a bit sooner with a marginal fuel filter)

don't burn new fluids though, change the oil in things you got and burn the used, no reason other than the used poop is "cheaper" because its useful life has been partially... utilized?
I dunno. Better to toss it in your tank than to burn fuel bringing it in to a collection place where they'll burn fuel trucking it to a plant where they'll burn fuel cracking it into gas and diesel anyways.

 

[turbobrick240]

Seems pretty wasteful to burn good lube oils as fuel. The sulfur in the gear oil could also be corrosive to the fuel system. Ask a friend with farming/construction equipment if they'd be willing to trade for D2.

 

[[486]]

The sulfur in the gear oil could also be corrosive to the fuel system.

no brass in an ALH

closest thing is the copper plating on one of the washers in the injector
though people don't seem to have trouble with that even running disgusting watery and crust-making vegetable oil

ETA: oh and the copper washers on the DVs and inlet/return but none of those will see any effects either

 

[Andyinchville1]

Hi,

Back when I was doing trucking type work and blowing through $200 to $300 of fuel a day 7 days a week , I looked into burning w85 / black diesel
(basically waste oil filtered (I bought a centrifuge to save on filters .... approx ratio was 85% waste motor oil 15% regular unleaded gas) .

I had read that running waste oil (buy in your case new so that is probably even better) is better in an older mechanical type diesel (non common rail) and supposedly IDI works better than DI engines (not sure why tho) ...

Having said that, I see no reason why our older 1.9's shouldn't be OK with running something like that (NOTE: some alternate fuel forums suggest running extra additives like Powerservice or similar AND being able to change out the fuel filter several times early on while running w85 / black diesel since the gasoline tends to clean out the fuel system and you don't want to get stuck somewhere with a plugged fuel filter.

Having said the above, I have not (yet) experimented with the w85 / black diesel in my TDI just because it uses so little d2 to start with BUT I suppose a penny saved is a penny earned and I already have the equipment ! (on the otherhand I only change my engine oil every 25K or so so maybe I'm just getting lazy!).

Good luck and keep us posted .....

Andrew

 

[johnsTDI]

what worked back then may not work today and definatly not on newer TDI's me personally Love my 2012 TDI and would not use anything other than diesel from the Gas station if Your planing on keeping it for the longhaul use the proper diesel in it.

 

[[486]]

and supposedly IDI works better than DI engines (not sure why tho) ...

their injectors are a lot simpler, with no spray pattern to speak of, only the pintle valve simply dumping fuel into a turbulent chamber with a very hot precup
they just tolerate crap fuel in general better with less white smoke at low load