So, what would you do with 55 gallons of gasoline and diesel, mixed together?

Here was the crisis of the day today...

As I posted elsewhere, last week, we did Extreme Makeover Home Edition. The builder had three trucks on site, but all the other equipment was on loan from either United Rentals, or Cleveland Brothers Cat. The production company had a truck running around all week, keeping things fueled up.

Sometime over the weekend, the guy was nice enough to fuel up the builder's GMC 10 ton dump.

With diesel.

It's a 427 gas engine.

It reportedly got about 20 gallons of diesel mixed with the 30 some gallons of gas that was already in the tank. It wasn't a big deal to get it empty. We used the hand cranked pump off my small tank, and had the plumber rig up a flexible piece to serve as a pickup tube, and pumped it into a 55 gallon drum. A couple of 5 gallon cans of gas, and it was good to go. (Well, actually, it had been parked on a slope. I had to run it enough to build air to get it turned around so that we could get the tank completely empty. Once it started getting the mix, it ran like crap, but it was ok after a minute or two of running with clean gas.)

Now the question--what would you do with a 55 gallon drum full of a 60/40 mixture of gasoline and diesel?

Digger do you have anyone with a waste oil furnace? or someone getting ready for a bonfire? That's what I would find to do with it.

DO NOT PUT IT IN A WASTE OIL FURNACE!!!!

I know someone who did this weekend

http://www.lohud.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2008810250357

I saw him in the hospital yesterday Tht is exactly what they were doing when the fire ball ensued!

We discussed the idea of burning it a waste oil furnace, but are afraid that that much gas would be dangerous.

I would put a couple gallons in at a time to top off the tank on a gas vehicle. I bet you'd never notice the difference.

Pecord Exc said:

DO NOT PUT IT IN A WASTE OIL FURNACE!!!!

I know someone who did this weekend

http://www.lohud.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2008810250357

I saw him in the hospital yesterday Tht is exactly what they were doing when the fire ball ensued!

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As you can see by the post times, I was typing my reply when you posted that. Thanks for confirming my thoughts that it wasn't a good idea.

humboldt deere said:

I would put a couple gallons in at a time to top off the tank on a gas vehicle. I bet you'd never notice the difference.

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I thought of that as well, but I can't claim to be an authority on the subject, which is why I asked here.

find your self a m35 army truck or some other army vehicle that has a multifuel engine and fill her up.... no harm will be done there.

This one leads me to a question. I hear old timers around here from time to time talking about adding some gasoline to diesel in the winter to prevent it from gelling up. Is this an old wives tale so to speak. Also makes one wonder how much gasoline mixed in with diesel would severally shorten the life span of the engine

Everytime you filled up a machine I would put a gallon or two in the tank to get rid of it. If you had a clearing project somewhere you could burn, I would use it to start the fire.
I would hate to waste 55 gallons, the stuffs not cheap!


Last year a fellow I know had his diesel single axle trucked filled up with gas by one of his laborers. They drove it for over 20 miles, running on gas to the jobsite. Once he found out what had happened he drained the tank out. Truck still runs fine to this day.

You can add about 6 qts of transmission fluid and burn it in a diesel.

You can add about 6 qts of transmission fluid and burn it in a diesel.

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Copy that. Gallon of dry gas and run it in your mower/atv

Rous said:

Copy that. Gallon of dry gas and run it in your mower/atv

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You can even mix in a few gallons of "clean" waste oil with it,and run it in a diesel.Like Steve mentioned though you need to mix in some heavy oil or ATF to give it some lubricity.I'd even use 2 stroke oil if i had some old oil laying around. I burn most of my waste oil in my diesels anyway,its free fuel,and i just keep it at around 5%,which is about a gallon per tankful,and all is good.

Disposal ?

55 gallons of mixed fuel would be classified as HAZMAT. You can't take it to the dump !

So call the Fire Dept, and ask if they want it for their training fires !

Call a Environmental Cleanup or Hazmat Disposal company to take care of your problem.

If you have access to a large open field , dig a hole and burn it. Of course being in a populated area you need burn permits I would say.

Turbo21835 said:

This one leads me to a question. I hear old timers around here from time to time talking about adding some gasoline to diesel in the winter to prevent it from gelling up. Is this an old wives tale so to speak. Also makes one wonder how much gasoline mixed in with diesel would severally shorten the life span of the engine

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I always thought this sounded goofy, however, a close friend had a Volkswagon Rabbit diesel. He showed me his owners manual that recommended 25% gasoline in the winter. It fixed his cold starting problem but always made him nervous.

I agree with adding a little oil such as ATF to it, and running it in a diesel. Just be sure not to put it in one of the newer engines. Preferably something with mechanical injection, as it will not hurt.
Had a friend tell me he used to put about 8 gallons ov Av Gas in his tank on a 16G. Said it made hills he once took in 5th gear become 8th gear hills after adding the Av Gas.

Just remember what too much of a good thing does

Just burning it off is a waste I think. The Dirtman's suggestion of diluting it down with fresh gas isn't bad. That old 427 should be able to burn it OK, but I'd only do it if you had some longer runs to make where you can run the crap out of it and get it hot. I wouldn't run it in a diesel. Too much chance for pump and injector damage, much more expensive to fix. No way should you burn it in a waste oil burner! Much too risky!

I know of two co. that added gas to their diesels- but only in extreme cold . and they kept close track of temp. as to much gas , or to warm a day would spike temp - This was before comp. diesels.Trying to say older diesel in cold weather added in small amounts should not hurt- do not add all at once.
The guy who takes my waste oil for his furnace does want gas in it

I pumped 7 gallons in my 06 F-350 6.0 diesel before I noticed my mistake.
I added 20 gallons of diesel on top of it hoped for the best. Well, I could not tell the difference. The truck ran ike it always did and that was 2 years ago and it still runs fine. I would add a little to whatever diesel vehicle you have at a time, it will be fine.

:my2c...Years ago I was in Wisconsin in the winter at -40, and I was having problems with fuel gelling (NTC Cummins, non-electronic) as with many other rigs on the road at that time. I pulled into a fuel stop to get some treated fuel, and the fueler suggested that I followed every other one's method, so I put on 50 gallons of unleaded gasoline and topped off with another 100 gals. of fuel. Never had a problem again on that trip, and whenever I would experience some fuel gelling I'd add some gas to cut it. Kerosene is the preferred product, but gas won't hurt a thing. I watched the pyrometer to make sure I didn't make too hot a fire, and it was fine.

I wouldn't hesitate to either A) Burn it off little by little in one of my off road machines (i.e; 10%/2 gals. of it to 20 or so normal LSD,)

B) Throw it in my 275 tank at the house. Don't have the 275 empty of course...make a dilution of 60/40 or better, and you'll never know anything was different.

I've proven this as well when I was in the petroleum transport business not long ago. I was loading my transport tanker at a terminal in the wee hours of a.m., when suddenly, the loading stopped. (Tankers are equipped with an overflow protection system, a "probe" mounted at the top of the inside of the compartment, that is energized while loading.) If liquid touches the probe, it "shorts out" the system, preventing an overload, or worse, blowing the dome cover off like in the old days. This is while bottom loading, which loads from ground level through a 6" quick connect valve, at 650 G.P.Minute...
The previous day on the last load, a mechanical problem occurred while unloading that same compartment with gasoline, causing the internal valve to close under the compartment, and thus shutting off the flow. When I checked the site glass on the elbow fitting, I assumed I was done, packed up, went home. Unfortunately and unknowingly, I still had about 500 gallons of gas in that compt.

Next morning as I said, it stops loading.(I should note I was trying to load #2 heating oil at this time.) To make a long story even longer, I had a custom blended compartment of 500 gals./87 octane, and 2600 gallons of #2 oil, or red fuel as most people would identify it as. Houston, we have a problem...

The customer I was headed to is a friend of mine. I arrived at his tank farm which has 85,000 gals. of storage. I told him what I had happen, and he wasn't worried at all. We distribited the 3100 gallons of "hot" fuel evenly into the 5 storage tanks and he sold it to his customers, hassle free. Probably burned better than any other delivery they had previously. We waited a week, and there were no reports of any homes or businesses blowing up in that town, so we figured we were safe at that point.

There's many old folklore tales about this, but as long as the ratios are tolerable, (more fuel than gasoline that is,) you'll never have a problem.

At today's heating oil prices, I'd head right home with it and like I said, dump it in the oil tank and if you're still nervous, dump another 50 gallons of oil in, and turn the thermostat up and enjoy...

Wow LoBoy. Your pal was lucky someone didn't have a problem. Somewhere in the last couple of years a gas station locally had a load of fuel delivered and it turned out to be gas instead of Diesel. It wasn't noticed untill several customers diesel vehicles quit running or lost power. They in turn sued the station owner and the transport company and it was a real mess.

Some years ago I had the same thing happen in Colorado at a card lock station. About ten of our company vehicles fueled up there early in the morning and headed out on the job. A couple didn't make it and the others all ran ragged as all get out before I learned what happened. The card lock folks ended up paying for two engines and a bunch of other parts and labor on the other trucks and vans. They were good folks that I'd done business with for about three years and it was an honest mistake by a new tanker driver so we stayed on with them. But a number of their other customers had the same problems and never went back after the damages were repaired.

I remember someplace back east had the problem happen in reverse. Diesel was placed in a gas storage tank, then pumped into a bunch of cars. The station owner had to make good on all of them including towing charges and other miscellaneous "damages." (trauma, PTSD, etc)

Mighty risky for a commercial retail operation to try to get by with. It wouldn't work with today's diesel and gas powered, computer controlled and emissions certified engines, with all their ad-on anti-pollution components.

About like the time a project office manager I worked with tried to save the job some money by purchasing home heating oil that was sucked back out of folk's home heating fuel tanks. It was high sulfur fuel with a bunch of water and heaven only knows what else in it. Cost the job a ton of money when it ruined a newer Cat 235 high pressure injector pump and all the nozzles. (well in excess of 20 grand as I remember) I did try to get it covered under warranty I recall and was laughed out of Beckwith's service manager's office in Pittsburg.