Military Multi-Fuel 2-1/2Ton Truck(?)

**2ndAmendican** · 04-13-2012, 10:14 AM

A few weeks back on Doomsday Preppers they were showing the one young family from Utah that had a '70's era deuce and a half that was "multi-fuel" capable. The guy claimed it would run on basically any liquid fuel including used motor oil. Showed him filling up aux tanks straight from a Jiffy Lube type oil change place. Call me stupid, but I have never heard of any military vehicle running on used motor oil, much less a deuce and a half.

What am I missing here, and why is that not being mentioned more as a fuel source for a SHTF scenario? I know all about the veggie oil conversions for the diesel vehicles, but this sounds like it would be the most economical and plentiful fuel source out there. Hell once everyone elses cars/trucks run out of fuel you can drain their pans and get a gallon or more from every vehicle you pass. Not to mention being able to stockpile it now for next to nothing. I'm sure several of the oil change places would probably even give you a few bucks on top of it, considering how much you're saving them from disposal fees.

kernelkrink · 04-13-2012, 11:58 AM

Diesel fuel is actually a light oil, and most oils will run in an older diesel. Many fleets, before the low sulfur diesel crap hit, actually filtered their used oil from the PMs and mixed it back in with the diesel fuel. before they started dying "off road" fuel red, a can of ATF every other fillup was considered a great injector cleaner. The only drawback to running it straight is thickness, in colder weather especially getting it to flow and pump well is a problem. Older diesels designed to run on high sulfur fuel, many owners dump 2 cycle oil in the tank to compensate for the lack of sulfur. Usually gets them a bit better mileage as well. About the only common fuel a diesel chokes on is gasoline, although a gallon or two mixed in a full tank of diesel was the old timer's "anti gel" solution before Power Service and others became readily available.

**Coils** · 04-13-2012, 04:59 PM

Basically what kernel is saying is the EPA regs are fucking things up like usual, a diesel engine will run on almost anything that burns, it's all the emissions regulations that changed that.
Hell even Henry Ford knew that, he originally designed the Model T's engine (basically a diesel) to run on a peanut oil based fuel, but gasoline production got it's foot in the door faster.

railbuggy · 04-13-2012, 05:23 PM

A Fish Shack opened two buildings down from me.I notice that he goes thru 5 or 6-- 5gal buckets of cooking oil a week.Out back he has a underground storage tank for the used oil.

kernelkrink · 04-13-2012, 06:50 PM

Too many people are making "bio-diesel" out of frying oil, the restaurants know they can charge for it now. The bio-diesel conversion process is there simply to make a fuel that flows at lower temps, in summertime you just need to filter it and it will run a diesel as is. IIRC, back in the 70s during the oil embargo Mother Earth News had a couple wimmen in a Diesel VW Rabbit drive across country using used fast food fryer oil. They had a 2 stage tank in the trunk with a gravity feed filter system. Only "drawback" was the exhaust smelled like French Fries and they had to keep stopping to satisfy their fry cravings.... For cold weather they had regular diesel and the exhaust was used to heat the tank and fuel lines for the fryer oil system. They started it on regular diesel then switched to fryer oil once the temps got high enough. Just had to remember to switch back to diesel a few miles from a stop to purge the fryer oil out of the system or it would congeal.

My Dad's old Farmall F12 tractor had a dual fuel setup, gasoline and kerosene. Kero was cheaper back in the day, you had a small tank of gasoline in the two compartment fuel tank for starting it, then once it was warmed up you switched to the larger tank of kero. There was also a lever on the magneto that adjusted the timing, IIRC you had to retard it a lot for the Kero.

**Bradrock** · 04-13-2012, 07:23 PM

My Mccormick deering 15-30 is the same way. They also have adjustible shutters in front of radiator to help control temp.

**bellson** · 04-14-2012, 01:00 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Coils

Basically what kernel is saying is the EPA regs are fucking things up like usual, a diesel engine will run on almost anything that burns, it's all the emissions regulations that changed that.
Hell even Henry Ford knew that, he originally designed the Model T's engine (basically a diesel) to run on a peanut oil based fuel, but gasoline production got it's foot in the door faster.

Hi Coils, Not trying to argue, but Ford designed the Model T to run off of Alcohol, and it was mechanic convertable to run off of either gas, or a gas/alcohol/oil mixture.

Henry Ford had the right idea. Design a vehicle that could use damn near anything to run on. Same thing with the tractors and farm equipment.

Smart guy.

**Coils** · 04-14-2012, 01:32 AM

Don't see it as arguing, I'm going to say your most likely right, but at least we're both on the same page that he wanted to use alternate fuels.

**2ndAmendican** · 04-14-2012, 06:55 AM

Rudolph Diesel was the one who originally designed his engine to run on peanut oil Coils, IIRC.

Yeah I'm well versed in the veggie oil conversion stuff. I've had friends run straight vegetable oil in the summer with no heater since you don't have to worry about it thickening up down here. Old Mercedes, Audi, and Volkswagen diesels. I had just never heard of burning used motor oil, but after thinking about it, it makes sense.

Not that I need one, but now I really want an M109.