Kerosene in a diesel engine?

Depends hugely on the type of "diesel engine". Old ones probably won't miss a beat, some stationary engines in particular are designed to run on almost anything.

On the other hand a modern car engine probably won't like it very much.

run fairly well

kerosene AVJET and red diesel are very similar. Kerosene is a slightly lighter mix, and normally doesn't have all the antifreeze additives that diesel does - road diesel also has some other additives to help engines stay clean

I know someone who used to un his cars on a 50/50 mix of central heating oil and road diesel.,

Also depends on how much and if its mixed with the correct fuel. It will probably stink I'd imagine as well. Brian

Its the problem with the flash point being different and hence it going sort of bang at the wrong part of the stroke. Brian

Kerosene may not have antifreeze because it is lighter than diesel. And historically kerosene was added to diesel to stop it waxing.

Flight at high altitude would be hazardous if kerosene froze!

Hmm, I wonder how close to home?

Does kerosene provide sufficient lubrication for the fuel pump? I beleive these pumps rely on the fuel for lubrication and can fail if they're not properly lubricated.

I would run fine. Until one of the many high-tolerance components in the high-pressure system wears out or seizes due to the lack of lubricity in the fuel. Or one of the plastic seals in the system swells or shrinks due to the different chemical composition of the fuel. It might take a long time for any of those things to happen if it's a relatively old fuel injection system.

It is certainly often claimed that more modern systems have smaller clearances in pumps and injectors and that there are lubricity additives in automotive diesel to give these components longer life.

I've seen a report on a motoring programme (not Top Gear) about what happens if you put diesel in a petrol car or petrol in a diesel. They demonstrated on old bangers that it didn't matter if they wrecked. Both sort-of ran, though I think the petrol car smoked badly on diesel and at one stage belched sparks out out its exhaust pipe.

I dread to think what damage was done to the cars. The report did say that they couldn't use a more recent HDI (high-pressure direct injection) diesel because that would suffer immediate and catastrophic damage to the fuel pump; an older engine with a lower-pressure mechanical pump was fine (up to a point).

The funny thing is that one of the cars continued to be taxed and MOTed for about 5 years afterwards. I wonder if the new owner of it knew of its history ;-)

I did that to my 2016 S-Max. My first disel, and it was two years before I accidentally filled it (well, a bit over half full, rest was diesel) with unleaded. I got about a mile. RAC came and pumped it out, had garage change the fuel filter.

I fitted a Fuel Angel to stop me doing it again. Great. I thought. A few months later I managed to defeat the Fuel Angel, but I had parked at home before I realised. Garage took car away and drained it, etc.

I changed the car very soon after.

I could find an example here, of advice.

Paul

As we know modern diesels being run on old chip shop oil ... messy, smelly but it works.

Actually, I don?t think we do know that. We know that older IDI engines were much less fussy but modern common rail DI engines don?t do well.

Tim

Our cats already do that. :-)