Date:         Wed, 4 Jan 1995 11:09:34 -0500
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@vanagon.com>
From:         DerekDrew@aol.com
Subject:      Gas Bus On Diesel Fuel Story

>but I saw David Schwarze's reply.

>I used to have a 72 Bus and I had a situation where my oil was getting
>thinner.  And fuller!  The culprit was the fuel pump--it was designed in
>such a way that when it went bad it allowed gasoline to get into the oil.

>Dave, I would check this.

>Will Self
>Billings, Montana

This is a true story from Derek Drew about terror and driving a
gasoline-engined
72 bus on diesel fuel:

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I had a situation once where my oil was getting fuller too. It got about two 
quarts too full in *my* 72 bus. The reason was that I had been up in the
tundra driving
my wife around on honeymoon but we got lost and drove 200 miles
north up into the heart of Labrador, Canada  by mistake on an abandoned road 
that had been built to make a dam for a hydro project. 

My wife said, "Honey, there doesn't seem to be trees any more. And 
where are we going to get gas?"

"Well, perhaps those indians we met camping out in teepees [200 miles
to the south] would have some they could spare," I answered meekly.

Anyway, we were near empty on gas around the time the road turned 
in to a dead end. In a hopeless, desperate move we looked around and 
found a shack left by the dam builders. In the corner of the building we
found a can with some fuel in it. The fuel smelled funny, but it was our
only chance of avoiding a week of hungry walking south to look for those
indians.

I poured it in the 72 bus and the bus stopped running, much to our horror. 
It turns out the gas was some kind of diesel fuel for mega giant tractors. I
figured this out and then found a gallon of Coleman white gas camp stove fuel

under the back seat of the camper. I poured this in to the gas tank hoping
it would help and it did, but not enough to keep the motor running. 

I then decided to pour a mixture of oil and gasoline intended for our two
stroke
canoe motor into the van to see if this would help. It did but I had to keep 
the rpms over 4,000 or the engine would die and we would have no power. 

Needless to say, there was a lot of clutch slipping every time I tried to 
bring the bus from a stop to moving.

We drove the bus down the 200 miles at 4,000 plus RPM with an explosive 
mixture of gasoline, two stroke motor oil, diesel fuel, and Coleman camp
stove
fuel. When I looked at the dipstick later, it showed the oil reservoir as
being two
quarts over maximum. What had happened was that the diesel fuel wasn't 
burning completely and it was slipping passed the rings down into the oil and

filling the oil reservoir too full.

derek