The ol' Briggs & Stratton Diesel

[dalton4]

With the diesel fuel you are burning I bet you also use Delo 15w-40 oil or an equal. Who said "Tool Time" doesn't exsist in the real world?

 

[justinp20012500]

Lets see...



I have got;



24 beers

1 old leaf blower (2 cycle)

5 gallons of diesel



and alot of time.



I am sure I can pull the head off and run over on the piece of 1/2" glass with sand paper that I have in the garage that might mill the head down enough to get it to light on a diesel/gas mixture. Might even add some standayne performance for the extra centane???



Sounds like a drinking good time!!





Justin

 

[dodge cummins]

what about mixing acetone in with the gas in the mower

 

[DTroy]

If you use a riding mower and you're in a hurry to go out with the boys, you can tie a string to the governor linkage. You can blast through the grass in no time. Have to be careful though, as excessive r. p. m. can blow/burn oil in a hurry.

 

[justinp20012500]

If you use a riding mower and you're in a hurry to go out with the boys, you can tie a string to the governor linkage. You can blast through the grass in no time. Have to be careful though, as excessive r. p. m. can blow/burn oil in a hurry.

Been there done that... Make sure you wear kevlar or shin gaurds. I had a brand new Craftsman/Honda lawn mower that I tied a string to the Gov. and ran it up to the handle. After about a year of mowing and maybe 11 or 12k's worth or RPM the rod flew through side of the block. Expensive mistake. But fun though, nothing like hearing that 5 hp scream at 7 in the morning on a saturday.



Justin

 

[Vaughn MacKenzie]

UPDATE. . . I'm well into my 4th season of mowing on diesel power, and the mower is doing great. Since last year I've had a much larger lawn to mow because I moved to a bigger place. Takes about 1. 5 hours each week.



Since the last update I shifted the position of the magneto coil in order to the retard the timing. It is now just a couple degrees BTDC in an effort to reduce detonation under load. It helped noticeably, I can load it down fairly well without it rattling at all.



There is a fine crossover point between when it's running smooth and when it starts to clatter. When it does clatter it's pretty violent. It doesn't smoke at all until it starts to detonate, then it's bluish black. The smell changes from something like a 3rd Gen on a cool morning to that of an old Detroit 2-cycle.



With as many times as I've done this (hundreds and hundreds of times) I'm surprised I haven't chucked a rod or blown a hole in the piston. The neighbor two houses down could clearly hear it. . . one day he says "man what's up with your mower? It sounds like metal on metal. "



This winter I am going to do a teardown and inspect the internals to see how they are wearing, and see if the rod is pounded down or if there's broken rings. Compression is good and it doesn't use oil, and it doesn't knock at all so I think it's pretty sound.



A light engine needs to have a good seal (be in good condition) to run on diesel, because I've tried this on a couple other engines and it did not work at all because they had some wear.



Vaughn

 

[Nyoest]

And the wife thinks I'm a diesel nut. You take the cake man ! Now I just gotta try it... ... .

 

[rbattelle]

Vaughn, thanks to this thread tonight I started blending in some waste diesel fuel in my Briggs lawnmower engine.



-Ryan

 

[Nyoest]

How did it run?

 

[C. Harlan]

Talk about digging a thread out of the closet!!! This one brings back some good laughs, and makes people not believe me, till I read it out loud. . then they are in shock!! Love this thread!!



-Chris-

 

[rbattelle]

How did it run?

Ran fine, but the mixture was probably only about 5% diesel. Next time I'll run 40% diesel.



-Ryan

 

[ThompsonS]

In Cuba they run gasoline engines on kerosene, cause kero is cheap and gas is not,



just start it on gasoline and after the engine reaches operating temp, switch over to kero,, the kero runs thru copper tubes wrapped around the exhaust manifold to heat it up.

 

[cojhl2]

Many of the old JD Two Cyl tractors ran distilate which I think is the same as diesel. You started them on pure gasoline then when they were hot switched the carb draw to the distilate tank.



I think they were low compression engines. .

 

[nickleinonen]

I started blending in some waste diesel fuel in my Briggs lawnmower engine.

no such thing... back in the tank it goes. . #ad
:-laf:-laf

 

[Vaughn MacKenzie]

the kero runs thru copper tubes wrapped around the exhaust manifold to heat it up.

Hmmm, might have to give that a try. Maybe my mower works good with it because the intake tube travels right above the engine to the opposite side, so it probably picks up a fair amount of heat on the way.

 

[ScottLewis]

I have an old (1916) Fairbanks-Morse engine that was advertised as an "oil engine" The fuel tank held kerosine (or diesel?). You filled the carb bowl with gasoline when cold, ran it until it warmed up, then switched to the fuel. The engine still runs fine although I just run it on gas these days. Not much compression left in the old engine. The motor too.



Dan

 

[The patriot]

I have an old (1916) Fairbanks-Morse engine that was advertised as an "oil engine"



Dan

When my Dad worked out in Lakehurst NAWC they had an old Fairbanks Morse generator set. It had a ladder on it... it was pretty big for a 100Kw set.

That was built in the 1920's. They ran it on diesel.

About 5 years ago it was being auctioned off. I wonder what it went for.

Eric

 

[Vaughn MacKenzie]

Well this month will wrap up the 5th season of running this same mower on diesel power How I've avoided blowing a piston, shattering rings or throwing a rod is beyond me because I've rattled the snot out of it on hundreds of occasions.



My observations this year are that it likes weather in the low 70s best because it has less propensity to detonate. . . I can load it pretty hard before it rattles. The crossover point between smooth quiet operation and sharp detonation is very fine.



I noticed too the optimal operating temp comes about 3-5 minutes after startup. At this point it's running strong, no smoke whatsoever, and I can run it hard with no detonation. It is easily putting out more power than when on gasoline, it just tears through the deep grass. But within a minute or two heat builds and so does the rattle. I have to back off the throttle.



In mid summer with temps in the 100s it has to be easy going, it doesn't take much of a load to bring on detonation. I have to baby it along.



It would be nice to come up with some way to regulate operating temperature a little and find the optimal operating point. I think this thing could perform pretty well if it could be controlled. What is interesting is how clean it runs after it warms up a couple minutes, there's almost no soot on the muffler where the exhaust exits.

 

[ANicklas]

You guys are sick. But what's even worse is I'm thinking of buying a used mower ($40 in the base want ads), getting it to run diesel and volunteering to mow my buddies' yards.
I'm guessing this works with other engines besides the B&S, or is there something special about it?

 

[Jdonoghue]

You guys are sick. But what's even worse is I'm thinking of buying a used mower ($40 in the base want ads), getting it to run diesel and volunteering to mow my buddies' yards.

I'm guessing this works with other engines besides the B&S, or is there something special about it?

I've tried this with my old mower, it has a Tecumseh engine, but it was a pain to get started because there was no choke, only a primer bulb. I had to spray WD40 down the air intake for a bit to get it warmed up, the the smoke would clear and it would run fine.

I have also done this in my small old riding mower, that thing has a much larger B&S engine (8 or 12HP, I think), and I was able to mow many seasons with it burning diesel before I finally moved and got a yard too big to mow with it!