Anyone burning crude oil in their diesel?

[RustyJC]

Will a little water hurt? What about all of the guys with water/meth injection?

The water/methanol (clean, I hope) isn't going through the fuel system.



Rusty

 

[nps]

The water/methanol (clean, I hope) isn't going through the fuel system.



Rusty

Yep - it's injected into the air intake system and only mixes with the fuel once inside the combustion chamber.

 

[TJany]

on our ship at school we have an 8 cyl Wartsila diesel generator. It runs on both Bunker C and no. 2. The bunker C is heated to about 150 deg. and run through purifiers before going into the engine. Bunker C is nasty thick oil that sticks and gums to anything it touches. I can't imagine running it in one of our trucks without it first being purified and heated. I don't see how you could pump Crude with the stock fuel pumps either, we use rotary screw pumps to move this stuff in bulk, and they aren't happy if the fuel is less than 110 deg. i'm not saying these guys are doing the impossible, just seems like its not very probable without modifications.



Tim

 

[Blakers]

Will a little water hurt?

We're talking brine here - in other words, salt water!

 

[Blakers]

on our ship at school we have an 8 cyl Wartsila diesel generator. It runs on both Bunker C and no. 2. The bunker C is heated to about 150 deg. and run through purifiers before going into the engine. Bunker C is nasty thick oil that sticks and gums to anything it touches. I can't imagine running it in one of our trucks without it first being purified and heated. I don't see how you could pump Crude with the stock fuel pumps either, we use rotary screw pumps to move this stuff in bulk, and they aren't happy if the fuel is less than 110 deg. i'm not saying these guys are doing the impossible, just seems like its not very probable without modifications.



Tim

Pennsylvania crude oil is not bunker oil Tim. It is very clean, non-aromatic, and has a viscosity about the same as regular diesel fuel.



Blake

 

[Blakers]

Yes, but most of these engines used fuel heating, centrifuges, multi-stage filtration, etc. to clean up the fuel.



Rusty

Most of it doesn't require any heating, but good filtration is a must. That's what I told my friend who runs it in his truck - make sure he has extra filters and they are good.



Some of the oil forms a viscous mix with water and will not separate until it is heated in the tanks at the well. But that is long before it gets to the guy who uses it in his truck.



Blake

 

[RustyJC]

Most of it doesn't require any heating, but good filtration is a must. That's what I told my friend who runs it in his truck - make sure he has extra filters and they are good.



Some of the oil forms a viscous mix with water and will not separate until it is heated in the tanks at the well. But that is long before it gets to the guy who uses it in his truck.



Blake

Right, but my post was in response to engines that were designed to run solely on crude oil. Oil pipeline companies used these many years ago to pump crude oil through the pipelines - typical engine brands were Busch-Sulzer and Baldwin, and they drove positive displacement (plunger) or centrifugal pumps. These engines took oil right out of the pipeline, complete with BS&W, so that's why they used heating, centrifuging and extensive filtration on the fuel systems.



Rusty

 

[Blakers]

Right, but my post was in response to engines that were designed to run solely on crude oil. Oil pipeline companies used these many years ago to pump crude oil through the pipelines - typical engine brands were Busch-Sulzer and Baldwin, and they drove positive displacement (plunger) or centrifugal pumps. These engines took oil right out of the pipeline, complete with BS&W, so that's why they used heating, centrifuging and extensive filtration on the fuel systems.



Rusty

I understand Rusty. Up here in the Appalachian fields I don't think they were quite so elaborate. The crude was pretty clean to start with and they were only pumping their own - not a national pipeline system that could have lots of variations.



Names here would be Bessemer, Ajax, Superior, Clark-Norton, Reid, Fairbanks-Morse, just to name a few.



For the most part they burn gas if the can. One of our compressor stations has 2 new Caterpillar V-12 gas engines. 1005 HP each, running 3 stage gas compressors.