Petrol in diesel misfuel 306 1.9td

Hope somebody can help me. My dad put £15 worth of petrol in his old 306 1.9 td. I'm going to disconnect the priming bulb from the pump, and pump the tank out, but apparently he ran it and it cut out, so the pump ( a Lucas unit ) has petrol in it. What's the best way of getting the petrol out of the pump, does it have a drain tap in it. Any ideas, as to pay £200 plus to have it sorted is not worth spending on the car. The car is currently 150 miles away from me, so I didn't want to waste time having a go if it's potentially knackered it.

Thanks.

I wouldn't have thought that £15.00 worth of petrol would have done it any harm if it had been filled with diesel afterwards, how much diesel was there in the tank?

Peter

you could always crack off all 4 injector pipe unions at the injector ends and crank the engine over till diesel comes through,
then remove the fuel filter clean the houseing out and put it back together with a new filter,

also syphone all the contsaminated fuel out from the tank,

i use an electric fuel pump fot this and if you cant conect under the bonnet, get into the tank from under the rear seat,

regards malcolm

Dont start draining the tank you will have petrol and diesel all over the place,not safe !! and a wast of money,then when removed what do you do with it??I had a 306 with about the same amount of petrol in.Filled it right to the top with diesel,inc injector cleaner,changed fuel filter,good bleed,then a good hard run and kept topping the tank up.That was years ago, still got the car no probs,those old Pug diesels are bullet proof.

The older engines (XUD) are more resilient to this mix than a HDi, simply as the pumps are different.

Having said that even an older IDI engine pump will not take just petrol as derv is needed for lubrication.

I used to do what Citronut said, we had a pump especially for just this, used to plug it into the fuel line on the bulkhead and drain it out.

In theory you should drain it all and refill with diesel (and change the fuel filter) but if you wanted to chance it with just brimming it with derv you can at your own risk obviously , as a personal opinion, as long as there's less than about 10% petrol in the diesel it should be OK but don't hold me to it, stranger things have happened.

[CitroJim]

Best way to drain/fully bleed the pump is to disconnect the return line, switch on the ignition (to open the stop solenoid) and pump the primer bulb until you've pumped about a pint of diesel through the pump. Do this after brimming the tank as suggested and all should then be OK. You should be OK with that much petrol in there on a very full tank.

Petrol is a recognised way of winterising diesel in very cold climates. I believe to about 5%...

The engine will cut out as soon as petrol hits the pump as a diesel is absolutely incapable of running on petrol. Petrol, being lighter, will float on top of diesel in the tank so if you refill with diesel and allow it to settle the new diesel will sink to the bottom of the tank and be ready to be fed to the pump. Bleed the pump as I described above until diesel comes through and hopefully it'll be OK. Then keep the tank brimmed for a few days/weeks until all the petrol has gone - it'll mix as the car is in motion and thus gradually disappear.

Thanks to all who took the time to reply! It's been a pleasure to come back to this forum! So many helpful people, so in true forum fashion, I shall reply with an update.

Car is sorted, and seems ( fingers crossed ) to be running ok.

I used the pump the tank dry using the priming bulb method, even moving the car from a flat to slight incline both ways round to get every last drop out. The mix of petrol to diesel was such that is was just petrol in the tank, fortunately it was only 1/4 of a tank. The petrol, or 'piesel' is going to be put in a petrol car 1 can to a fill up ratio until its used up.

I drained the filter housing and cleaned it out, and changed the filter. I bled the system and primed it all using the bulb after putting 10 litres of fresh diesel in. I cranked the engine over on 5 second bursts, and she coughed and spluttered a bit, but fired into life. I drove it to the local petrol station, and stuck another 20 litres of diesel in.

It's just made the return journey home ( over 100 miles ) with no incident, and actually seems to be running better and a lot less smokey! Strange!

Thanks again for all the replies.

Rob

The petrol, or 'piesel' is going to be put in a petrol car 1 can to a fill up ratio until its used up.

I hope it's not fitted with a catalyst,,,

[CitroJim]

Good news Rob The petrol, just before it died, might well have done a bit of a chemical decoke!

The petrol, or 'piesel' is going to be put in a petrol car 1 can to a fill up ratio until its used up.

I hope it's not fitted with a catalyst,,,

Good point Richard... It'll generate smoke when burned in a petrol engine and will do the cat and maybe the oxygen sensor no good at all... Do you have a lawn mower Rob? Best place for it...

Else that, find a classic car owner. Something like a Morris Minor will not mind it at all...

May also cause running issues, seen this when someone used a 'petro-derv' mix in a 106 (early monopoint) 1.1. Had some odd running / cutting out / (slight) smoke issues although they did use it 'neat' as it was , I expect a carburettor based engine would of faired a bit better though in running terms at least with said mixture.

I think putting say five litres of it into 40 maybe 50 litres of normal fuel should be fine though and not have much effect. I would agree lawnmower or suchlike would be best though.

my x workshop landlawd rubbed his hands together when i drained a full tank of petrol from a diesel ZX,

he said i'll have some of that,
his car was an L reg ASTRA, he promptly poured 10lt's into his tank,
in the morning he was not to pleased as his car broke down on the way into work,
the owner of the ZX had filled his tank with petrol as the low fuel warning lamp had come on,
so it should have been nearly a tank full of neat petrol,

the ASTRA owner had running problems for the rest of the week

regards malcolm