Multi fuel burning motors

chromebumpers

chromebumpers

solid fixture here in the forum
Staff member
Last night I was watching an episode of Junk Yard Empire and featured on this show was the partial restoration of an old fire truck. The truck was a 1940’s Rio Diamond with a partial engine. The yard just happened to have a motor sitting on the property. They said the Rio Diamond Motor was from an old military Duce and a half and it was a multi fuel motor - it can burn anything, gas, diesel or alcohol.
My question is - how does a multi fuel motor accomplish this? I’m assuming you just don’t put any of those 3 fuels in the tank and take off running. Is this something that can burn multiple fuels only after changes are made?
 
Military multifuel engines[edit]
One common use of this technology is in military vehicles, so that they may run a wide range of alternative fuels such as gasoline or jet fuel. This is seen as desirable in a military setting as enemy action or unit isolation may limit the available fuel supply, and conversely enemy fuel sources, or civilian sources, may become available for usage.[3]

One large use of a military multi-fuel engine was the LD series used in the US M35 21⁄2-ton and M54 5-ton trucks built between 1963 and 1970. A military standard design using M.A.N. technology, it was able to use different fuels without preparation.[4][5] Its primary fuel was Diesel #1, #2, or AP, but 70% to 90% of other fuels could be mixed with diesel, depending on how smooth the engine would run. Low octane commercial and aviation gasoline could be used if motor oil was added, jet fuel Jet A, B, JP-4, 5, 7, and 8 could be used, in an emergency fuel oil #1 and #2 could be used.[6] In practice, they only used diesel fuel, their tactical advantage was never needed, and in time they were replaced with commercial diesel engines.

Currently, a wide range of Russian military vehicles employ multifuel engines, such as the T-72 tank (multifuel diesel) and the T-80 (multifuel gas turbine).
 
during WWII my dad said that civilian gas was rationed tighter than diesel was so it was not uncommon for guys on farms to install two fuel tanks on trucks with gas engines,
the idea was you simply started the truck using gas, and once it was fully up to operating temp, you swapped over to a tank that was about 75% diesel and 25% gas,
yes the engines smoked noticeably, but they ran reasonably well, the trick was when you, had to remember to swap back to the fuel tank supplying the carb with pure gas about 4-5 minutes prior to having stopped.
failure to do so made the truck almost impossible to start unless you , swapped to that gas filled tank and dribbled gas into the carb during the first several minutes.
this may all sound like a great deal of extra effort, but you might only have a very limited supply of gas, and having access to a few extra gallons of diesel mattered.

https://laurenfix.com/article/gas-r...ing_wp_cron=1540567760.3327000141143798828125
 
I remember my mother telling how she had to replace the gas in a neighbors car during the war
when my brother poured sugar in their tank. I imaged that got him so pretty big trouble !!!
 
I did alot of Research on Allis Chamlers tractors.
Because of the 1st Great Depression and WW2 rationing innovations were used.
The Kerosine burning tractors are rare now.
Had a Preheat chamber in the intake manifold I read.
Used a small amount of Gasoline, lamp oil, or denatured alcohol to warm up.
Then fire on Kerosine.
 
Allis Chamlers even built a Fuel Cell 100 percent zero emission farm tractor prototype.
1959 Year.
Looks like NASA Built it.
Plowed fields up in Wisconsin I read testing it..
 
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