[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > 1. what is so different about gear lube than other > oils - motor, ATF, etc? that makes it so bad.
Nothing, inherently, that I am aware of, makes it BAD. Though I have never heard of anyone running gear oil through their diesel fuel system. Also, it obviously has different properties to ATF and oil, otherwise you would not have a situation where some manual gearboxes can be damaged by using it, where engine oil is specified. However, you yourself described how 'used up' it was, in terms of colour and smell. IMNHO, any used lubricant does not even belong in a waste oil recycling stream (I say that advisedly, given the recent dire warnings being given to shops about contaminants in the oil they dump into their recycling tanks), let alone in the fuel supply of an automotive diesel engine. Any more than, for example, used engine oil from the car of some dim bulb who left it in for 50k miles without a change. There is a difference between used oil and garbage, right? > 2. bacon grease - filtered, simply, but hardly > refined. It blends perfectly fine with diesel, so why > should it cause a problem in the injection > pump?...it's not like it's corrosive to metal or seals > or gets cold in the pump and "hardens the > arteries"..proportion of bacon grease to diesel is > probably 1-2%. I can see obvious jelling issues in the > winter if the proportion were too high. Well if there's a chemist, or chemical engineer, or lubricants specialist in the house, now would be the time to stop lurking ;-). The Bosch inline diesel injection pump looks from the outside like a robust piece of kit, but on the inside it works as well as it does because it's a precision instrument on the order of a Swiss watch. In particular, it relies upon the lubricating qualities, and general purity, of the diesel that runs through it. The equipment to properly service or rebuild one is expensive and there are very, very few people really qualified to do it and/or who have a solid track record. I have been on Mercedes lists for more than a decade, and I've read countless posts from people qualified to talk about it. To say nothing of what I've heard in conversations with diesel mechanics who have decades of experience on these engines. YMMV, but the day that anything that cooked out of something else in a frying pan goes into my car, filtered, remixed, diluted, or whatever, will be when social conditions have hit the Mad Max level. Now of course you are free to do what you want with the car, it's yours and good luck with your experiments. That is not really my point. HOWEVER, my concern is wider than this issue, and comes up because I almost posted a rant a week ago on another subject. That is, that the vast, vast majority of people who read list content we never hear from or know what they take away and do with the information. On most lists, 5-10 percent of the membership contributes 90 percent of the traffic. Some people only read part of threads, or only join the list for a short time and may not even take away the collected wisdom of an entire thread. So I get uncomfortable when I hear stuff like this being discussed as though it's all harmless weekend shits and giggles, that's all. Much like the thread a week or so ago about welding up a stressed bar (anti-sway bar), then someone posting an anonymous pic of a homemade repair using some metal sleeve. There is a difference between sharing information and propagating questionable or dangerous practices, and it would be good if we all kept that in mind and put prudence before raw enthusiasm. (To say nothing of the fact that some clever legal beagle could probably hold Kaleb responsible for suggestions on this list that result in mishaps.) Ask any shop owner how many cars he has seen towed in, completely FUBAR-ed by someone who's bigmouth BiL or know-it-all neighbour, or whomever, gave him advice about how to work on it, or substitute parts, or whatever, and got him in so deep the car is now a mess. I have friends who run shops, I've seen it. Okay, end of sermon, putting on my Kevlar suit. Mac
