Running on a combination of HHO & Cellulose Thinner ?

[janmarsh]

Here in UK petrol now costs £1.35 per litre. I can purchase Cellulose Thinner £16 per 20ltr. can.

I have often wondered about using it as a fuel, I then came across this comment by a chemist:


Quote:
                     Ok, cellulose thinner is a mixture of ethanol, propanol, butanol, and
ethyl/prolpyl/butyl acetate. Compared to petrol, it's practically
drinkable! (don't drink it - this is just a comparison)

It won't dissolve neoprene and it won't contaminate oil (where the hell
did that come from anyway?).

What you do lose with it is a certain amount of lubricity that you get
from petrol. Petrol is a mixture of hundreds of compounds, most of them
alkanes. The longer chain alkanes provide a bit of lubrication to the
fuel pump, the (carb/injectors) and the upper engine.

The problems you will experience running on cellulose thinner are the
same you'd experience running on LPG or ethanol - slightly increased
wear in the bits I mentioned. Not to any huge degree, but worth mentioning.

Other problems you may experience include pre-detonation, so you may
need to adjust your timing to suit, and hot/cold running, depending on
your mixture.

Cellulose thinner is a much more refined product than petrol, and costs
a lot more to produce. The reason it's cheaper to buy is of course
because of the tax on petrol. Petrol is less refined, but in many ways
this makes it a better fuel - there's no point in putting a huge effort
into refining something which you're just going to burn.

[Bob]

its a very sad state of affairs when taxes make a more refined product cheaper than a less refined product..... but its not the first time that has happened
....
if you do run that thinner in your car it might be a good idea to add about 1/4 quart of 2 cycle oil to a tank full of gas thinner mix.... the 2 cycle oil can be the cheapest stuff you can find... or lacking that a bit of automatic trans fluid, or normal engine oil....  just something to give it some slickness
you don't need much ! .... and too much will screw things up....
  Keep in mind that your emission control system will DIE very soon doing this...
  ITS SIMPLY NOT WORTH IT in California.... a catalytic converter will set you back Hundreds of dollars
and that would buy lots of regular gasoline and not thinner!
...
 before you do mix that thinner Know what it will do to the emission control stuff , or you may be out thousands of bucks !
...
Bob.........

[randy]

I'd get an older vehicle with a carburetor so that you have easier metering control, then as Bob said, mix 100 to 1 ratio with 2 stroke oil, then you don't have to worry about catalytic converter or too much in the line of emissions control, sounds like it'd be worth doing but you wouldn't want too many people doing it or the price would skyrocket on you.

[janmarsh]

I certainly agree with what you both say.  My HHO project car was built from 1967 to 1975 so has a very basic engine, twin cylinder,single carb.,SOHC with no sensors of any sort.

By it's nature, thinner is far more vaporous than petrol. I was wondering about pre heating & pressurising to a semi gas prior to introduction....... lubrication would still have to be considered as you have pointed out.  The carb. would have to be removed & replaced with a form of metering system.    With a 600cc engine capacity,  things are on a much smaller scale than what you guys are dealing with so costs should be less as long as I don't find pistons flying out of the engine   

[Bob]

LOL !
when I was a KId I had a  1959 Fieot 500  that's a 500cc air cooled engine twin cylinder 4 stroke.... Kind'a wish I had that car now   I tell ya! .... anyway its top speed was around 45mph but has serious point problems... you had to mess with it every time you wanted to go somewhere!  I used it to drive to the bus stop 2 miles away and half the time it wouldn't start ! HAHAHAHHA
 was a fun little car though... had a low gear that was really cool ! you could climb up our dirt road easy.... but if you had to get a RUN to get through the MUD you were out'a luck ! HAHHAHAHA
...
...
we got 41mpg out of it when it would run long enough to get some sort of a MPG reading, had a 5 gal gas tank and you could wind it out in 4th gear and get as fast as 50mph !
.... my honda 500cc would out run it any day of the week but it was DRY inside that little car...unlike the 50cc honda ! LOL
...
a 2LPM hydroxy generator on that car would have really been something ! bet you could get 75MPG with it !
HAHAHHA
Bob......

[Brad4321]

If it won't contaminate oil...does that mean it won't mix with oil? If so, adding some 2-stroke oil or the like wouldn't work.

Adding a bit of lubricity (a bit, very small amount) won't hurt a fuel injected engine one bit. Those of us with old diesels do tricks like this to lube our fuel systems since the hippies pulled all of the lubricity out of diesel. I add a small bottle of 2 stroke oil per tank, not sure the size..about a 1/2 cup, per tank. At this ratio I get a bit of blue smoke from the oil. This is just fine for a diesel, but if you tried a similar ratio on gas fuel injection it would plug it up in short order....maybe a tablespoon per tank.

I don't know anything about Cellulose Thinner, but I do have one recommendation: pure ethanol. Yes, ethanol will eat the seals from old cars, but anything 90's on up should be fine, some cars down into the 80's. The fuel companies have been pumping our gas full of ethanol for a while now and cars have been compatible long before that. Ethanol will burn at a faster rate (has less BTU's), so you will also have to up the fueling a bit, but HHO could take care of that and then some. You can distill ethanol fairly cheap once you get a good recipe going, and it doesn't cost much to convert any vehicle over. Running a still isn't legal everywhere, especially in the US without a fuel permit, and I wouldn't ever advise doing something illegal (and I sure wouldn't do it myself), but it is quite possible and can be done quite cheap. The octane rating is quite nice too. My drag truck runs on pure alcohol, bought legally of course, for the octane boost alone.

[janmarsh]

UK Petrol price update.

I am now paying £1.37 per litre.   That works out to £5.18 ( US $8.35 ) per US gallon.

I will have to pick up one of two things very soon, the ability to run my car on HHO or a gun......  The major revolution against the banksters could well be seen here first folks !   This ain't funny.
 
                                                                          Marshall.

[randy]

Good lord, you're getting fleeced, I am sure it's fixing to happen here too, the US governments spending habits have put us so far in debt the country can't even pay the intrest, the value of the dollar is going to diminish, other countries will no longer accept the dollar, things are going to get bad in a hurry, we probably all need to build stills and run on alcohol, that I know for sure will run a vehicle. My best guess to run hho exclusively we need pressurized storage along with constant production, sounds scary to me, hauling around an H-bomb.

[Bob]

OOOH OUCH !
 that just ain't right ! if it comes to that here I won't be driving anywhere !  I'll buy a bicycle!
and peddle the 20 miles to town !
GADS !
hang in there Marshall !
...
heck, at that cost you could buy wood or coal and go with a wood gas setup  for far less money by far!
... WOODGAS is a alternitive !  that or go electric !
...

Bob...

[Manta]

Marshall,

Morrisons put up the price of Diesel by 1 P per litre the day before the tax decrease.  Then,  as expected,  they reduced it by 1 P the day after.

£1.36.9/Litre at the moment.

I could use the bus (Free pass) if it weren't for having to take my wife to and from work.  I hardly ever use the car for my own interests.  Maybe I should ask her to pay for her fuel ?

Bad Idea !

Dave,
(Manta)

[randy]

Here it comes, Just read about impending government shutdown in the US near future, it has to happen, government can't continue the way it is, it's our government causing economic collapse here, their greed is finally catching up to us, were going to get screwed, the taxpayer is going to foot the bill, times are fixing to get real hard here.

[Bob]

HAy ! its Manta !  long time no see Manta...i've missed your input !
...
Randy.... I dunno what you hurd but it don't sound good at all.... care to explain ?
...
...
My wife just retired , and things are tight here but we'll get by.... it seams likely that all hell will break loose now.... just seams to be the way life treets us ! LOL
...
Bob....

[janmarsh]

Bob, Dave,Randy,    Bob Chapman's forcaster site has a very good name in being accurate................ it's an uncomfortable read.

                                  http://theinternationalforecaster.com/

                               Marshall.

[randy]

Uncomfortable as it may be, it's happening, you can only borrow and spend so much, our government spends with impunity, when they find their out of funds, their solution is to print more money. Most of that money has gone to government itself, congressmen write their own payroll, the rich buy out congress so that they don't pay a fair amount leaving the debt on the taxpayer, but now were so far in debt we can't even pay the interest on the borrowed money, any foreign investor still holding US dollars is now scrambling to get rid of them before they take a huge loss, I figure everything will double in price, maybe more, and do it quickly, our government is to blame, they drove businesses out by taxation and made it much more appealing to have products produced in other countries, our GNP is non existant because of this, therefore we have little value in the world economy. 

[Manta]

HI guys,

Yes,  things are looking rather grim for the furure.  I just glad I'm not a young fella who is just starting out in life and has to find a good job with security,  buy a house etc.

What we (as a family) are feeling most is the increased cost in food. Up adout 15% over the last few month I'd say.  I am making a greater effort in the garden this year. Even if it means a larger than usual vegey mix in our diet;  at least we'll stay fed.

Anyway, I'm way off topic here.

Keep warm, keep fed,  keep busy.

Dave
(Manta)