What was flash fuel or power fuel?

We were talking at work yesterday about our old A's and B's JD's and the ability of them to run on flash fuel or power fuel or what ever it was called. What was the product/ somewhat like kerosene? I knew someone on this forum would know. Thanks for resonding. Jim

Kerosene it was very cheap but you had a little less power. Boy try to buy a gallon now.
Walt

I can get it at several pumps around here easy enough, but yeah, it does cost a bit more than deisel, but for a heater in my garage, a little extra cost doesn't bother me much. Kero at the store in the 2.5 gal. jugs though- WOW!!!! $20 for 2.5 gallons? That's $8/gallon!! I'll admit those jugs are handy for transporting it, but so is the 5 gallon can a co-worker gave me because he no longer used it.

Donovan from Wisconsin

I can remember back in the fifty's seamed like every summer my grandfather would hand me a nickle and the Special gallon can and i would ride my bike down the street to the corner gas station and get a gallon of kerosine so he could clean the paint brushes with . Oh wait , when i stated driving in the early sixty's gas was .16.9 a gallon for hightest and i can remember the big fuss when it went up a nickle to 21 cents a gallon then up to 24 cents a gallon . First time i filled my new semi tractor i put in a 192 gallon for around 58 bucks.

I used to hear it by different names.."Coal Oil", "tractor Fuel", etc.

Tractor manufacturers were in the business of "selling tractors" and claimed all sorts of figures for "economy" and "power"..

Some claimed their tractors could do the same work on "tractor Fuel" as on gasoline, but we know that was a Farce..!

What was true was that "Tractor Fuel" was CHEAP.. like .03 to .07 Cents per gallon..

Ron.

A British fella was visiting the USA and has hosts took him to Wal-Mart, one of his comments was "Why are you bloody Americans selling ice tea in petrol jugs" His host replied "No the problem is the stupid Brits insist on putting gasoline in ice tea jugs"

(Power Fuel was a high grade of tractor fuel. Power fuel had a lower grade than gasoline, but higher than kerosene or distillate. Power fuel was sometimes specifically formulated to avoid road taxes imposed on automotive fuel.) This came from tractordata.com

My Grandmother called it Coal-oil she kept a can on the old kitchen wood stove to start the fire and kill ticks that she took off the dogs and us kids.
Walt

Kerosene is sort of like JP1 with a 100 degree or so vapor point- get a bit of hot air on the intake stroke for droplets to vaporize and you can use a spark plug to ignite it- the old heat exchangers, shields on the 1920s --> tractors got temperatures over 100 for intake air- the JD B noted to have 140 degree running intake air temperature. Kero is a specific distilled product with relatively precise standards and procedures from a "pot" still and carries over to the continuous stills.. Distillate comes from the odd bits of "between" grade of the various steps of continuous stills and the old batchs from pot still- instead of the output from the 100 degree step only it takes the odd cups of 85 degree run, the 100 degree run and the 120 degree run plus some of the 140/150 degree runs (JP5) and mixs it together so it "averages" 100 degree and can be sold cheap on market for a particular user -like a power plant in cold area or farm tractor. TVO- tractor Volatising Oil as fuel in UK in 1950s was a sort of duplicate of this fuel- but was a mix of heating oil about 80% with a 5% shot of gasoline base and 10% mix of diesel fuel, 5% other whatever Handy or as blender figured customer needed, proportions varied- keep your heat exchanger on full time, start on gasoline until warmed engine and go plowing. Wasn"t a better fuel than diesel or distillates- but at the time farm use gasoline and diesel were road taxed- no exemption- while "heating oil" was not taxed in UK. Heating oil was about 120 to 140 degree vapor point then- the splash of taxed gasoline helped ignition, the light 110 degree vapor point diesel stabilized the mix and ready burn after a bit of help from the gasoline. Canada BP had a "power fuel/power kerosene/tractor fuel/ in 1950s to 1970s, may still have it that was a 50/50 roughly blend of gasoline base and diesel fuel with a few little splash of whatever. as a "tractor fuel" was not road taxed and the prewar distillate/all fuel tractors were happy with it, the diesels run in cold weather started easier and artic condition diesel engines really needed it. A modern at the time car engine would be knocking some so untaxed fuel users getting robbed of fuel by teenagers with family car could look for kid driving the knocking smokers. A prewar JD B with a mower at a airfield that tests batchs of jet fuel can run on the combined cups of the tested throwaway mixed in gas tank for a long time- and the gasoline for mower tractor bill of $5. to 10.00 a week stays about the same even if the gasoline goes into the mower drivers car or motorcycle and since the grass at side of runway was mowed as usual nobody in management looked closer- so the mower tractor smokes just a little, it is 20 years or so old and paid for, still does its job. Using the 5 gallon fuel can labeled "mower tractor" in your wife"s empty car gas tank when she stalls after dropping you off at work and resulting smoke and knocking is first clue for airport management that something seems different. The old distillate /all Fuel/ Kero tractors run fine on unleaded gasoline with 100:1 2 stroke oil in them, The UK tax law changes about 1980s(?) for less tax for farm use meant more straight diesels used and the TVOs converted to gasoline many times although some of the Fords on Ford board/UK noted to retain the TVO heating controls for winter snow shovel, utility haul the cattle feed and manure in winter use. Canada -Buickanddeere(?)- poster notes gasoline/diesel mix used in forest service equipment, tractors and bus, trucks in winter there yet. Lots of uses for whatever liquid burns cheap - internal combustion engines can be made to run on many things. RN

I found a oil bill from 1956 and it was 6 cents a gallon. That's when my dad switched from wood burning to cure tobacco to oil. We used oil till the late 60's and changed to LP.

.
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I would not doubt (once up to full operating temperature that they would have run on pure "Crude Oil" straight from an oil well, if a guy was desperate..
You still needed gasoline to start and get the engine up to operating temps, tho.
A Classic I love to hear is an "oil Pull" plowing.!

Ron.

There was a product called naptha tractor fuel.

(quoted from post at 08:06:29 04/05/14) We were talking at work yesterday about our old A's and B's JD's and the ability of them to run on flash fuel or power fuel or what ever it was called. What was the product/ somewhat like kerosene? I knew someone on this forum would know. Thanks for resonding. Jim

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Most likely what you are referring to was known as "distillate" fuel. It was not kerosene, and it was not gasoline. Niether was it diesel.

Standard Oil sold "Power Fuel" tractor gas back in the 50's.
My dad used it in his JD 34 D.