Infinite miles per gallon? Although, I would suppose it would actually run on gasoline. At least, for a little while.......

"I've had the same gas in my tank for three years. Of course, because I was running gas, the engine locked up, and I haven't driven it for three years........"

 

You've got something you haven't driven in 3 years?

 

Oh hell no. I know better than to put gas in a diesel too. Please note the quotes around that statement.

 

Actually the brake pedal is an accelerator pedal also. it just accelerates you in the opposite direction of motion.

 

Negative acceleration.

 

Yeah I saw that, but thought you might have been quoting yourself...

Once saw a guy put gasoline in an old diesel tractor. He was not happy! He didn't know what he was thinking.

 

Did he figure it out in time? Or was that an "Oh ****!" moment?

 

No, he realized it when it was running and rough blowing smoke everywhere. Kind of an "Oh Crap!" moment.

 

Back when I was a bigtimeprofessionalovertheroadtruckdrivingman {yes, its all one word like that} the companies I drove for would always put the new guy in the oldest tractor they owned.

Now, semis are not known for getting great MPG, but I would almost always get the best fuel mileage that anyone ever got with a tractor after about a month of driving it.

My secret was at the first fuel up with a new to me tractor was, I would put a quart of methyl alcohol {normally used in your air brake system to keep it from freezing up}in the fuel tank. Sometimes I'd just put a quart in every time I got fuel until it seemed to clean things up enough. There was never any damage done by doing this, I used to worry a lot about ruining an engine by adding the alcohol but most of the trucks held 200 gallons of fuel and one quart of alcohol mixed into it really didn't seem to hurt anything.

Its like 800 to 1 mix ratio.

It would clean the fuel system and injectors pretty nicely though.

Of course there are other things that help to get the best fuel mileage like progressive shifting. It got to where I could hear the turbo whistle and the exhaust cackle, if both of those sounds were 'happy' the engine was doing well and you were getting good MPG.

Some of the guys would lug the **** out of the engine and shift way to soon. Others would way over rev which is just as bad for an engine. The truck would move, it just wasn't happy about it.

Neither of these things is 'good' for any engine be it gas or diesel.

Of course I also would clean a tractor when I got it. I used a hammer to get the built up mud out of the driver side carpet followed by many applications of spray can carpet cleaner. Many times used a whole bottle of armor all getting all the vinyl cleaned up and shiny.

I'd put those shiny lug nut covers on all the wheel lugs and I got pretty good as polishing the aluminum wheels. I had a silly little 12V angle grinder that plugged into the cigarette lighter outlet and a box of different polishing compounds, pads and polishing wheels I'd use. I still have a little 12V shop vac that still works that I would use in the truck too.

The companies always said they would reimburse the drivers for any cleaning supplies they bought. Just once was there ever a question about how much I spent on that sort of stuff. So I had the bean counter and the truck boss come out to my tractor and take a look. That was kind of a mistake on my part because they started slip seating me a lot more often, just because I actually took the time to clean the damn things up.

I repaired or replaced dozens of stereo radios and CB's in the trucks too.

Several times they had me take along a driver to teach them how to get the better fuel mileage.

Some of those guys had been driving longer than me and probably had actually driven every paved road in the country, they just didn't understand about progressive shifting.

 

Some more pics of the rig: