Can the Cub run on diesel fuel?

I am new to tractors so please forgive my ignorance. I was looking at various tractors in a book that appeal to me and I liked the Farmall Cub a lot, but the book states this is a gasoline powered tractor and I am wanting a tractor that runs on diesel fuel. Can the Cub run on Diesel fuel? Was an all-fuels intake manifold available for the Cub does anyone know?

Thanks

You want a tractor that runs on diesel fuel... better buy a diesel!

Bob: If he doesn't know the answer, might not be be bad advice, telling him not to buy any tractor.

The Cub was ONLY built with the C-60 gas engine. In 1947, when the Cub first hit the market, gas was around 20 cents a gallon. In the late '60's, my dad had a Cub with a governor off a 50T baler, and it would crank up to about 2250 rpm, or about what the later 184/185 LowBoys would. With a Woods 42 mower, it would cut about an acre an hour, and would burn about a gallon of gas an hour. So with gas then about 32 cents a gallon, a diesel version just didn't make sense.

...but won't an all-fuels adapter allow it to run diesel fuel? If not, which fuels will run through an all-fuels adapter and which ones won't?

The manifold won't make any difference because as far as I know all diesels require an injector system of some sort so the fuel doesn't pass through the manifold. MTF

Hugh, thank you. My thoughts exactly.

Most of the little Japanese and Chinese tractors run on diesel fuel. They ship used ones into the USA in containers, and they aren't too expensive. They may not have a standard PTO setup, and extra hydraulic outlets may be difficult to hook up.

superpunchy, first off there is no such thing as an "all fuels adapter." There were "all fuel" versions of Farmall tractors, but there has NEVER been an "all fuel" Cub.

Cubs are gasoline only, period.

"All fuel" means the tractor will run on gasoline, distillate, or kerosene. Distillate fuel is no longer available. Kerosene did not work well in spark-ignition engines, very weak on power. Most of these tractors were simply run on gasoline once gasoline was no longer rationed.

Cubs are still gasoline only, period.

If you want a diesel, get a tractor with a diesel engine. There is nothing practical that you can do to a Cub to make it run on diesel. It will not work.

Spend a few minutes and look up diesel engines on wikipedia. Diesel fuel will not explode with a simple spark, will not mix with air through a carburetor. Diesel fuel needs to be sprayed directly into the cylinder in a fine mist, then squeezed under tons of pressure to make it explode.

If you dont know what a diesel engine is how do you know you want one?

I was happy to hear your question- it's a fun one to kick around in the mind. A diesel Cub might be fun. I'd never even think about doing it to the Cub I have, however.
There are no dumb questions...(everyone knows the rest).

(quoted from post at 09:03:45 08/04/08) If you dont know what a diesel engine is how do you know you want one?

Click to expand...

I want a diesel tractor to kick the addiction to the expensive fossil fuel (petroleum) habit, because I know I can run straight vegetable oil (SVO) and bio-diesel in a diesel engine.

Straight vegetable oil can be acquired for free and bio-diesel can be brewed at home for a small fraction of the price of gasoline and regular petro-diesel. This is why I want a diesel tractor.

on those containerized chinese tractors:
there was one on ebay the other day, 9 grand, plus 1500 shipping. about 8 weeks delivery time. You assemble tires, etc.

cannot tell ya any more about that though, but if it is a good one, that is a great price. if it is a lemon, you lose out because there likely is no warranty, or no customer service, maybe a 3month wait for parts. may as well buy used in that case.

there was also a used 2 cylinder mitsubishi diesel for around 2k, i think it included some attatchments and a loader as well.

use the ebay search to help you find the right category, then select all items in that category, you will find a lot more items. I think everyone has trouble searching because of aol and others making it too easy for the average person to find "britney spears" or "nintendo" just by typing in one or two words. So people are not using their brains to think categorically about what they are looking for...but that is a book in itself on that topic...

karl f

It would be possible to make a diesel cub (I think the Fergusson T20 deisel was only a very low 9.5:1 ratio)but fairly impractical.I guess it would blast the engine apart in minutes. There are a few 75cu and up deisel engines on the market so a conversion would be possible but I guess totally pointless. Too much of a strain even thinking about it. MTF

I don't think there ever was a dual-fuel Cub.

Even the dual-fuel (gas and either kerosene or distillate) motors in the letter series had to be warmed up on gas before they'd even begin to burn the other. The MDs started on gas through a carb, but had a lever to switch over to regular diesel injectors.

Bio-diesel could actually be a better/more efficient fuel than whatever it was they called distillate (everything I've read suggests it was pretty trashy, a byproduct of refining gas and diesel that would still actually burn), but even if you were able to cut in an extra tank for starting on gas and cobble something together for a pre-heater for your bio stuff, I doubt you could ever get the kind of atomization from the updraft carb and the heat of the manifold to make it burn effectively.

What you're trying to do is worthy of respect but, to my mind, you'd be better off finding a decent used 2 or 3 cylinder diesel tractor. Bolens and Iseki made some way back with Isuzu diesels in them that can be found pretty reasonably, as can some of the older tractors of various makes with Yanmar power.

Good luck!

i call bull on this

I have seen pictures of erupoean cubs that have diesel engines in them. As for a cub running on pure diesel-no. I while back a guy gave me 500 gals of old fuel oil mixed with new diesel fuel (contaminated with gas). I didn"t want to do any damage to my good diesel engines so I tried mixing it with more gas and running them in my farmalls. I find 25% diesel in gas makes for a nice running farmall, including my cub. I pull a 59" belly mower and with the added diesel fuel, it gives me more power and runs nicer.

Scotty, Don"t even listen to the negative slams.
Whatever your reasons, at least you are thinking and doing which is more than most.

I meant to say to Superpunchy..Sorry Scotty

IH in Germany built a equivalent diesel Cub from 1953 to 1956. It was the two cylinder Farmall DLD-2 (German Light Diesel) with about 12 HP. This was later replaced in 1956 by the D-212 Farmall, a better tractor with the same engine. In 1958 this was replaced by the D-214 (German 2 cylinder 14HP) with a standard wheel arrangement (like a British built B-250 or B-275 but smaller). In 1962 the D-214 was replaced by the D-215 (same tractor 14 HP (DIN) = 15 HP (SAE) and they painted the wheels white instead of the earlier red wheels with white rims. They stopped production in 1964. The later DLD-2 and all of its subsequent replacements had Category 1 3pt linkage available and all had differential locks operated by a lever to the left of the seat.

Are you sure you can get cheap veggie oil? I have a 1992 chevy truck I wanted to run on wvo but cant find the stuff. There is some sort of wvo nazi around here.

"Diesel fuel will not explode with a simple spark, will not mix with air through a carburetor. Diesel fuel needs to be sprayed directly into the cylinder in a fine mist, then squeezed under tons of pressure to make it explode."

well, almost... a couple years ago we ran out of gas on the farm and I needed to use the super c before the delivery was scheculed. so i threw in some #2 oil.. it ran, but horribly. It wasn't quite as bad if run on nearly full choke (normally doesn't like any choke at any temp), but smoked like crazy. can only imagine what that would do to plugs with any amount of time. so diesel will explode in a gas engine, but not well.

There is a very significant difference between a compression ignition engine (diesel) and a spark ignition engine (gas/kerosene/distallate, etc).

Basically, the problem with trying to use diesel in a spark ignition engine is a result of the high temperatures required to vaporize diesel. A spark ignition engine depends on a creating a flammable mixture of fuel vapor and air in the carburetor. Gasoline will vaporize sufficiently to create a flammable mixture at a relatively low temperature. Heavier fuels such as kerosene require the engine to be at operating temperatures to ensure that the fuel vaporizes sufficiently to form a flammable mixture. That's why old dual fuel tractors always started on gasoline & then switched to the heavier (and cheaper) fuels once the engine was hot.

Diesel, on the other hand, does not vaporize well enough to create a flammable mixture in a carburetor. Diesel engines depend on the air temperature in the cylinder being high enough to auto-ignite when a fine mist of diesel is sprayed into the cylinder. This temperature is achieved by the rapid compression of the air in the cylinder and the heat of the surrounding metal. That's why most diesels have some sort of supplemental heat to start, usually in the form of glow plugs in modern engines. Other starting methods include the use of a gasoline pony motor to spin the diesel fast enough and long enough to get the cylinder walls hot. The old IH gas start diesels had a third valve in each cylinder which opened up to a bigger combustion chamber containing a spark plug, and a set of shutters to connect a carburetor to the intake manifold. Once the engine was up to speed and warmed up, the third valve was closed to increase compression and the engine switched to diesel.

Hope this helps a little. I understand there are military engines that will run on just about anything, including diesel and jet fuel, but I'm not familiar with how they work.

Keith

The multi fuel engines that will run on virtually any combustible liquid actually all run on the deisel(heavy oil) principal of injection with injector pumps etc. Not on the Gas(spirit) method with carbs. They are of both compression and spark fired(either but I think not both). I'm not suggesting the same system as the old MD which was a brilliant system. My belief is that it is necessary to change the injector pump settings to run for long periods on different fuels. MTF

A Cub has only about a 6 to 1 or 7 to 1 compression ratio whereas a diesel engine requires a minimum of 14 to 1 compression ratio to get the air hot enough so nthat when the fuel is sprayed into the engin it will ignite. The early IH diesels, WD-40, Farmall MD, WD-6 WD-9 etc used about 14 to 1 compression ratio with the third valve and extra cylinderhead chamber reducing it to 6 to 1 compression ratio for gasoline starting (and also to enable the operator to crank the engine over). The 1950s, 1960s, German IH diesels use a 19 to 1 compression ratio. With the high compression raios used in diesel engies it is almost impossible to hand crank the engine and on a WD-40 cranking by hand was the only way of starting.
A lot of small diesels (marine etc) have a means of holding the exhaust valves partially open, i.e. decompressed, until the person cranking the engine has is up to a sufficient speed that the flywheel has enough inertia to carry it through the full compression to start.
The British Marshall diesel tractors used a burning wick in the cylinder head for starting with the engine being turned while decompressed. Later a cartridge, like a rifle cartridge without the bullet, was fired into the cylinder to provide the energy to turn the engine over for starting.
The Lanz Bulldog semi-diesel engine used a 4.5 to 1 compression ratio but it was the hot-bulb in the cylinder head that started the combustion of the diesel fuel when it was sprayed into the cylinder.
The early Allis Chalmers KO crawler tractors and the 1940s Case tractors burning diesel fuel used a spark plug to start the burning process and were, therefore, not diesel engines.

In short, NO. Cooking oil is rare as hen's teeth here in Louisiana. The State has started buying A LOT of establishments used cooking oil. Rumor has it there are two reasons. Number 1, why let people make their own fuel if the State cannot tax it. The other is that the State might be making their own Bio and blending it with diesel to resell...

Put that in your pipe and smoke it.

Charles