Farmall H Fuel Comsumption

Hi folks, I have got a 1945 Farmall H wich is an all fuel tracto wich i have been running on kerosene with a gallon of petrol to every gallon of kerosene. This wors very well on tractor road runs but the tractor lacks power up the steeper hills so i have to drop down to 4th gear and hold everybody up. The last road run i took part in i run the tractor on petrol and it ran a lot better. The run was 30 miles and took 5 hours trvelling time. Before i set off i diped the fuel tank and i had 6 inches of petrol and when i finished i had 4 inches of petrol in the tank. I was very pleased to enjoy myself all day on 2 inches of petrol. There was 90 tractors on the run raising money for cancer research. MJ

in the Neb.test it used .604 lbs of fuel an hr. for belt usage at 23hp, 100 percent power . it's overall a very economical tractor . have fun.

Hi I am in UK also on my H I use 1 Gallon petrol to 4 gallons kero runs very nice even when ploughing as regards droping to 4th gear on a hill remember this is a 23hp tractor doing 8-10mph in 4th and 20+mph in 5th need to keep shutters controlled to keep temp gauage at top end of green for kero to get good power

Hi W400, try your H on petrol for road runs somtime and you will notice the improvement. My H is a 1945 model and the serial number is 193306. It wet new to vegetable growing farm near Nottingham and carries the Notts registration GNN 987. I bought it of the first owner in 2003 with all the mid and rea mounted hoe frames wich I took off for road runs. It was at the big tractor show at Newark last November as I put together the show of Internationals. This year I am featureing David Brown and Case tractors. The show is local to me as I live just outside Newark. MJ

Hi MJ, I had a 1943 H which I used to drive a distance of 75 miles twice, sometimes three times a year, often towing a trailer with a Little Genius 2-furrow plough behind it. Actual travelling time was 5 hours making the average speed 15 mph, and used 5 gallons of petrol i.e. 1 gallon an hour. Petrol was Unleaded 91.

Here in New Zealand kerosene is a lot more expensive than petrol and is not even considered as a fuel.

However, I have a son who is an maintenance engineer at the local airport and several years ago one of their jet fuel storage tanks became contaminated with water and the fuel had to be dumped, so I became the beneficiary of about 600 litres of jet fuel. Petrol is not a cheap commodity here so thought it would be good opportunity to save some money by using the jet fuel in the tractor. The heat control valve in the manifold was already in the mid position (seized as they always are) and also the radiator shutters were installed. The engine ran well once it was fully warmed up. Power was slightly down and fuel consumption slightly up but overall performance seemed to be pretty much the same.

I haven't been able to find out what the octane rating of jet fuel is but with the H having a compression ratio of 4.5 to 1 I didn't think it would be too critical and the engine didn't seem to suffer any adverse effects.

I calibrated the tank on the H so that I could more accurately determine the amount fuel that was in it. 6" depth = 10 gallons, 4" = 6½ gallons, so you used 3½ gals. on your outing, a good day out. (We use the metric system here but I still work in gallons [ Imp.] and miles.

On the side, my 1951 Super C is not as efficient as the H, it only does 12 mph and has a fuel consumption of 1 gal. an hour. Sid.

I haven't been able to find out what the octane rating of jet fuel is

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Jet fuel won't have an octane rating.

Jet fuel is made up of hydrocarbon molecules with anywhere from 8 to 16 carbons in them. Octane is 8-carbons, and there isn't a whole lot of it in jet fuel.

Gasoline is made up of hydrocarbon molecules with 4 to 12 carbons, 8 is the "average" so that's why they rate gas by octane content.

Jet-A is a good substitute for kerosene, as they are very similar.