Gas Into A Diesel

Neighbor put gasoline into his Kubota L3010, started and idled it about ten minutes and it died. He asked me ( a NON-MECHANICALLY MINDED GUY) if he'd ruined it. I phoned a Kubota Service Manager and also looked on-line. We (neighbor and I siphoned the gasoline out, and filled it with my dyed diesel.
The dyed diesel showed up (red) immediately in the filter. We started and idled it about ten minutes. It seems good to go. Whaddya think? kelly
 
We did that once with a kubota diesel in a zero turn mower. It didn't seem any worse for the experience after. It ran fine after we got all the gas out of it. We ran it for a couple years after the incident.
 
I think you are ok. Helped a friend drop the tank on his new diesel pick-up, it was not gas but DEF he put in the fuel tank, we cleaned the tank out filled it with, diesel and went on down the road. No problems
 
Diesel also lubricated and cools the injection pump. Since it was just idling, there would be minimal damage from lack of lubrication.It may show some odd symptoms., like perhaps surging a bit at idle or slow to return to idle on throttling back, but these won't affect its use or cause a loss of power. Had he used it, the damage could have been a lot worse.
Ben
 
My wife inadvertently put gasoline in an Olds 88 diesel once.

I emptied the tank, changed the filter, and bled diesel fuel through the system. It ran fine for a month or so till we had to replace the head gaskets.

We never could determine if the head gaskets were a coincidence or not.
 
I would put some 2-cycle oil in the fuel for some additional lubrication for the pump, should of been done right away! I add a couple of ounces for every 5 gallons of fuel on a regular basis.
 
We had a 3010 Kubota at work to mow the grass, plow snow and light loader work. One of the managers filled it with gas, sounded like the whole world was coming to an end. I drained/ refilled the tank and bled it, don't think it hurt a thing.
 
I think you will be ok. Looks like I am the not the only one to have done this. I added 5 gal of gasoline to my JD Industrial, which runs on diesel. It had around 5 gal already in the tank, so I was running on a 50-50 mixture. What I noticed after a while running, it was heating up more than normal. After I woke up and realized what I had done, I drained the tank, changed the fuel filter. It ran good after that, then it started running bad. I had the pump rebuilt, and ever thing has been good since that. That was about 6 years ago. Stan
 
ONLY issue would be the injection pump, the close-fitting parts there need a bit more lube than gasoline offers.

Outside of that, the engine would run just fine all day on gasoline, IMHO.
 
In my many years of diesel injection repair I've never seen ANY pumps damaged with the gas fill mistake. Get the gas out, fill with diesel, change the filter, bleed the system and go...
 
I get waste oil from a couple garages to heat my shop and both of them have barrels fuel of gas /diesel mixture they have drained from vehicles. Cant safely burn it in my furnace and they dont know where or how to get rid of it.
 
I know guys that used to put 10 or so gallons of gasoline in their truck tanks each fill up in winter to keep the fuel from freezing. I always though it was nonsense to do that. I never had only a couple of times that fuel froze in 20 year on the road. Once I neglected to change filters in the fall before winter and the other was in the yard with southern fuel. I ran from MI to the northwest in winter as well as to eastern parts of the country. winter or summer.
 
The early ones had problems.

Once GM got the bugs out of them and installed roller cams they weren't a bad little diesel. But by then adverse publicity had done a number on them. We had three of them over a period of time and those head gaskets were the only problem we had.

In 1986, I drove one to California and went 4,000 miles on $118 worth of diesel fuel.
 
I have a feeling you were going to change the head gaskets on you 350/4.3 diesel no matter what happened.
 
That's interesting! When I worked as a JD mechanic I tore down an engine once where the lands between the rings were all broken. The head mechanic said I could of been caused by gasoline in the fuel.
 
I would be willing to try some of that mixed fuel in some of our all-fuel John Deeres. I usually put in one gallon of diesel fuel when I put 10 gallons of gas in the tank.
 
It doesn't really matter. If he hurt it, he hurt it. There's no point in wasting money fixing it until it breaks, IF it breaks.

Would you tear down an engine that is running fine just because you SUSPECT there might be a problem with it? No, you keep running it until actual symptoms that allow you to diagnose the problem present themselves.
 
Gas burns the tips off the injectors and causes loss of lubricity in the pump. It is a very good possibility the injector nozels are damaged. If they are, they can shoot all the fuel to 1 side of the cylinder thus burning up the liners, pistons, etc. I've seen it done on a White and JD where the hired men filled them with gas. Good luck with it.
 
(quoted from post at 04:41:28 08/15/18) I get waste oil from a couple garages to heat my shop and both of them have barrels fuel of gas /diesel mixture they have drained from vehicles. Cant safely burn it in my furnace and they dont know where or how to get rid of it.

If it were my furnace I would blend 10% gas diesel mix into my waste oil. I burn waste oil in a foundry furnace and have used up to 20% gasoline in the oil. I think the only downside is fewer BTU's per gallon.

Mercedes used to recommend 10% gasoline in diesel for winter fuel.
 

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