Adding diesel to gas instead of marvel mo

An old timer in my marina saw me adding MMO to my fuel which I have always done.He yelled to me ,why ya using that stuff when ya could just use diesel.He went on to tell me that he has always used diesel as an additive to his gas.He said " itll keep er clean and itll lubercater real good too".Not to start another MMO or oil thread but has anyone ever heard of this ???? Charlie

Re: Adding diesel to gas instead of marvel mo

crazy charlie said:

An old timer in my marina saw me adding MMO to my fuel which I have always done.He yelled to me ,why ya using that stuff when ya could just use diesel.He went on to tell me that he has always used diesel as an additive to his gas.He said " itll keep er clean and itll lubercater real good too".Not to start another MMO or oil thread but has anyone ever heard of this ???? Charlie

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Howdy,


Um.....the old timer is wrong (why do people think just because they got away with something for years it makes it "right"?).

MMO, Diesel, Naphtha (mixed with light oil and lard......AKA MMO), or ANY OTHER snake oil will not do anything to the fuel except lower the octane, foul the plugs, increase unburned carbon in the combustion chamber and cause a risk of detonation! (period)

The engine is designed to run on gasoline. NOT gasoline mixed with oil. (that's for 2 stroke engines)


You DID start an MMO thread.... not your fault though. It's a valid issue. It's just there are a LOT of people that think they "need' to "add" something to their oil, gas, transmission, rear end, drive, windshield washer fluid, etc etc etc to "make" them work "better".


Is in the culture!


Just put fresh clean gasoline in your boat and go boating!


Rick



Cheers,


Rick

Re: Adding diesel to gas instead of marvel mo

^^^^ +1

Re: Adding diesel to gas instead of marvel mo

Where has this been moved to??

Re: Adding diesel to gas instead of marvel mo

crazy charlie said:

Where has this been moved to??

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• Non-Repair I/O and Inboards

Re: Adding diesel to gas instead of marvel mo

Add nothing but ethanol stabilizer.Unless you use the boat a lot.Then you need nothing.J

Re: Adding diesel to gas instead of marvel mo

I have wondered about this.
My boats previous owner added small amount of 2 cycle oil to the gas.

benefits could be
keeping the fuel from gumming? As in when gasoline dries up in the carbs and blocks passages.
or
as an upper cylinder and valve stem lube

adverse could be
oil in the exhaust leaving a water sheen?

A little amount of oil wont hurt, too much turns the exhaust smoky like a car with a worn out motor.
I dont see how it would hurt anything. For a while I burned up some old atf oil in the car at a ratio of a qt to 20 gallons. If I went any higher, starting took 2 seconds longer cranking time. The car ran exactly the same otherwise.

Re: Adding diesel to gas instead of marvel mo

benefits could be
keeping the fuel from gumming? As in when gasoline dries up in the carbs and blocks passages.

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so............when the gasoline "dries up"...........where does the oil go? Does it just magically disappear?.

For a while I burned up some old atf oil in the car at a ratio of a qt to 20 gallons. If I went any higher, starting took 2 seconds longer cranking time. The car ran exactly the same otherwise.

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If it runs the same, then why do it?

as an upper cylinder and valve stem lube

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If you need upper cyl and valve stem lube then why don't you need it in natural gas and propane fueled engines?

I know where this is going. It will turn into a "here's what I use and I've never had a problem" Thread.

Over the years people have made all sorts of claims that keep snake oil salesmen in business.

The Perceived benefit is always the driving force even when it cannot be proven or is even proven wrong!!

ATF is a hydraulic fluid. Hydraulic fluids have antiwear additives that should NEVER be burned in a internal combustion chamber (compression or spark ignition).

Fuel stabilizers (like Stabil and others) is the ONLY thing you should put in (4-stroke engine) gasoline. Anything else is just asking for trouble (and wasting money)

Just stick with what the manufacturer suggests instead of what snake oil salesmen suggest.....



YMMV.....


Rick

Re: Adding diesel to gas instead of marvel mo

Many of these "old timer" remedies date from the time when engine oil didn't have the detergents and other additives that they now do. The arrival of hydraulic valve lifters in the late '40's created the demand for higher detergency oil and with it came MMO, Rislone and host of others. Oil filters didn't appear on cars in that era unless they had hydraulic lifters. Rislone for example is a 5 weight oil with extrememly high detergency and it works very well at cleaning up a gunked up engine. It was designed years ago for that purpose and with advancements it is not nearly as necessary today as it was back then. At about 2000 miles most oils of the day began to lose their cleaning ability and the tight tolerances in lifters caused them to begin to clatter. An oil change and fresh detergent cleaned them up again and they quieted down. There are situations today where any of these products may be called for although those are few and far between. But give me a noisy, but otherwise ok engine and Rislone will be in the oil. It is a cheap test to see if "dirt, gum and varnish" are the cause of the noise. Call it mechanic in a can if you will but those snake oils still do their intended job. It is just that the jobs are not nearly as plentiful as they used to be. How do I know this? I'm old enough to have lived through that period and well before that. I've also wrenched for more years than most of you are old (not bragging - just complaining about my age).

Re: Adding diesel to gas instead of marvel mo

benefits could be
keeping the fuel from gumming? As in when gasoline dries up in the carbs and blocks passages.
so............when the gasoline "dries up"...........where does the oil go? Does it just magically disappear?.

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that is the point. It wont dry up but stay oily and maybe loose liquid oil is not gummy.
So what I am thinking but could be wrong is the gums in the fuel will remain dissolved in the non drying oil and wont form sticky deposits on intake valves and oil passages. Likely the oil used would need to be high detergent, an oil that can keep a gasoline gum from forming a stick deposit.

So if you take gas, and oil let it dry what do you have left, supposedly a little oil.
when the gas is reintroduced, it mixes with the tiny amount of leftover oil.
no gums can form due to be dissolved in non drying oil.

Re: Adding diesel to gas instead of marvel mo

The reason that I have always added some MMO to my gas is that gas used to have a lot of lubricating qualities in it that do not exist any longer.Adding some of the lubricating qualities into my gas I believe is beneficial.The old timers suggestion of deisel sounded to have some merit to it.Charlie

Re: Adding diesel to gas instead of marvel mo

crazy charlie said:

The reason that I have always added some MMO to my gas is that gas used to have a lot of lubricating qualities in it that do not exist any longer.Adding some of the lubricating qualities into my gas I believe is beneficial.The old timers suggestion of deisel sounded to have some merit to it.Charlie

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There's a LOT of people that agree with you and the "old-timer" ......(IMHO.....YOU and they are totally wrong)


I am at a loss as to someone explaining how Stoddard solvent, light mineral oil and (1%) lard provide "lubricating" qualities when burned in a combustion chamber.........

2 things....

Gasoline has never had lubricating qualities. AND why would one "need" it? Natural gas and propane fueled engines last thousands of hours. Where's the "lubrication" there?

When you burn oil in a combustion chamber any lubricating "quality" (in the exhaust) is lost unless you dump so much in you get massive amounts of blue smoke and massive amounts of UN-burned fuel too. [I am not talking about a 2-stroke-cycle engine that passes the fuel-oil mixture through the crank-case] You cannot compare carbureted 2-stroke engines to 4 stroke engines just because it's in boat.


Any time you add additional long-chain hydrocarbon compounds (oil) to a gaseous fuel you increase the amount of oxygen required for a complete burn (read carbon deposits!)..........you also increase the tendency for detonation.

Look up what happens when reciprocating aircraft engines are mis-fueled with jet fuel...... Jet fuel is Kerosene. which is close on the hydrocarbon scale to diesel (Diesel #1 IS literally Kerosene)

NO engine manufacturers suggest adding ANYTHING except maybe Stabil to gasoline.


But hey, if it makes you feel good to dump MMO, or other ol-timers secret sauce to your gasoline, you should do it.

We need to keep the engine rebuilders in business.......

This stuff has been argued on just about EVERY internal combustion forum on the internet.

It's not rocket science nor is it new...........


Cheers


Rick

Re: Adding diesel to gas instead of marvel mo

I have never understood why some people think they need to use some concoction that is not recommended , and is frequently discouraged by the manufacturer when there is no proof of any type that it helps in any way.

Old timers tended to add things they thought would aid in keeping the old motors running in spite of marginal engineering and less than great lubricants. Engines are far better now and so are the oils, but we still insist on adding these same old near snake oil, miracle in a can products that do nothing but empty your wallet, actually some could do more than that. I suspect some may give false readings to the many sensors on modern engines resulting in poorer performance, reduced mileage and more pollution.

An elderly woman I knew wrote a short book about living in Oklahoma as a little girl in the late 1800?s. In the book she talked a great deal about the home brewed medicine they believed did wonders for them, turpentine was an ingredient in almost every one of them.

Re: Adding diesel to gas instead of marvel mo

I wouldn't add MMO to my tractor, much less my boat. The boat gets nothing but pure gasoline through the fuel line. The ONLY time I add anything in with the fuel is Sta-Bil when I winterize, and fogging oil through the carb.

Re: Adding diesel to gas instead of marvel mo

When I was a wrench in an independent auto shop, I had an old timer tell me that he ad's MMO to his gas because "It helps to keep the jet's clean". The old timer was driving a late 90's Chevy blazer. :facepalm:

With in the same month, an older woman asked the service writer if we would check the points in her 2004 Buick. The service writer asked me if it was possible to check the points, I told him I will once I found where they put the distributor.

Point to my anecdotal stories is not to pick on the old-timers, but simply show examples that technology evolves for the better, and most people didn't know, or sometimes refuse to keep up.

Re: Adding diesel to gas instead of marvel mo

The only thing added to my fuel is ethanol And Marine Stabil and towards the end of the season the red stabil.

I hate additives. I learned my lesson a long time ago with radiator stop leak. You "NEVER" trust what the package tells you. There is almost always a disadvantage to adding anything in order to prevent maintenance.

Re: Adding diesel to gas instead of marvel mo

[QUOTE

Gasoline has never had lubricating qualities.


Rick[/QUOTE]

Gonna have to totally disagree with that statement.Gas used to have a totally different texture.Now it is basically like alcohol where it used to be much more slick and kind of oily.You obviously know much more about gas that I do so can you please explain to me why many better marinas promote that there is "Valvetect" added to the gas that they sell.Charlie

Re: Adding diesel to gas instead of marvel mo

I have noticed todays engine cylinders dont wear out like they did in the 'old days'.

2 things have changed to cause this, engine oil is much better.
and
engines are now mostly fuel injected.

carb motors flush more raw gas down the cylinders which must make for more wear. Old oil did not lube so well the upper cylinder, heat must have broke down the oil easier.

The reason I noticed this is when I rebuild them today engines never have the ridge at the cylinder top. At least the ones I rebuild, and engines used to have that ridge and many times fairly deep.

I just did a jeep 4.0 cherokee 98 and the cylinder were so clean the hone marks were still there after 195,000 miles.

Re: Adding diesel to gas instead of marvel mo

i heard you can stop a radiator leak by putting a raw egg in it... the hot water cooks the egg and plugs the hole, supposedly. any takers? who's gonna back this one up? or bust it?

Re: Adding diesel to gas instead of marvel mo

1980Galaxy said:

i heard you can stop a radiator leak by putting a raw egg in it... the hot water cooks the egg and plugs the hole, supposedly. any takers? who's gonna back this one up? or bust it?

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Raw egg radiator repair was proven by mythbusters.