Whoops

[bigginger]

Inadvertantly deleted the amusing 'prank' posting from Ronald Summers. For the record, yeah, I fell for it, and I'm sorry. More examples of the man's highly honed wit here - http://greenfour.co.uk/ronaldsummers/

[chickenjohn]

Never mind! Whoops me too- I just managed to accidentally delete all the PM's in my in box- is there any way to get them back?

[RogerRust]

For those who missed it here is a transcript! At least I was awake enough to spot it was a spoof!

Hello there,

I suppose I should introduce myself really. My name is Ronald Summers and I am very new to this whole “car” thing. For most of my life I have lived in the very quiet village of South Perrott in Dorset where we rarely see cars, let alone drive them! I have recently taken the huge step of moving to London to kick-start my career as a Judo Teacher / Roof designer.

Six months, four days and I suppose a couple of hours ago I finally passed my driving test. I felt quite proud actually because it was only my fourth time and my parents said that to pass on my fourth attempt wasn’t too bad at all. Some people I have met since living here don’t seem to agree but then again everyone seems to have a bit of an attitude with me here.

I am the proud owner of a 1965 grey Morris Traveller and up until yesterday everything has been fine with it – quite surprising really because it only set me back about £3500!! I couldn’t believe it when I saw the price! It’s also only done just over 180,000 miles – the man that sold it to me said he thought it had quite a lot of miles left in it so I went for it then and there.

Yesterday after work on my way home I went to fill up at the petrol station. For the first time since I have owned the car I chose to use diesel instead of the usual Petrol. I had recently read a small section of a magazine article while in the doctor’s surgery about the benefits and disadvantages of both petrol and diesel and I have to say – I didn’t really understand a word of it! It did persuade me to want to at least try the diesel alternative though.

After paying I set off and everything seemed fine for the first 10 seconds or so. Pretty soon after leaving the forecourt the car started making a few strange sounds and appeared to be very “jumpy”. All of a sudden the car came to a stop and I couldn’t even start it again! I only live literally around the corner from the petrol station and could even see my house from where I had stopped – why couldn’t it have just gone that little bit further?!

Anyway, it was getting late so I just hopped out, put the handle brake down so the wheels could move freely and pushed it onto my drive - two of the old ladies that live nearby came out and helped as well – how nice is that?!

Thing is – I forgot to put the handle brake back up again and the car subsequently rolled down my drive and straight into all my flower pots. Needless to say I now have a crack in my bumper and three very unusable flower pots. So annoying.

My question really is what have I done to the car? I know it was the first time that I had used diesel but I can’t see how that would cause the car to react like it did! Is there any chance that because I have only put petrol in the car before that the engine is sort of just “used to it” and therefore got a sort of shock when I used the diesel instead? My only other thought is that I may have used the diesel that was only meant for lorries or something like that? Is the diesel that lorries use thicker or anything?

I tried the car once more this morning and it actually sounds worse that it did yesterday! The engine won’t really start at all now! I suppose it’s a good thing that so many of my students cancelled their membership with my judo class because I would have been very late this morning having no car to drive! I phoned my parents to ask their advice but my father wouldn’t even listen to what I was saying – he just wouldn’t shut-up asking about how my Judo teaching was going!

I typed “car advice uk forum” into a search engine and one of the results was this site – it looks like a fairly active forum and my previous experiences with internet forums have been very good so I hope this will be much the same.

Please could somebody give me some sort of advice as to what I should try next? I so wish I had just stuck with the usual petrol now! I am starting to regret even moving down here - It seems that maybe Mum was right and I wasn’t ready for London after all.

Thank you in advance of any responses

Ron Summers




chrisd87
Minor Addict


Joined: Nov 07, 2005
Posts: 786
Location: Exeter (term), Cambridge (out)
Posted: May 17, 2007 - 12:51 AM

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To use diesel fuel the car has to have a diesel engine - which works on a very different principle to a petrol engine (compression ignition vs. spark ignition). Minors only ever came with a petrol engine so therefore you cannot put diesel in a Minor. Diesel fuel is rather different to petrol (it is less flammable IIRC) so therefore it won't burn properly in a petrol engine.

I don't think putting diesel in it will have caused any lasting damage but the car won't run with diesel in the tank. You'll need to have the fuel system drained and refilled with petrol.

_________________

Sarah - 1970 Minor 1000 2-dr
Maggie - 1969 Minor 1000 4-dr
Tuned 1098 engine project



bigginger
Webeditor


Joined: Sep 09, 2004
Posts: 7473
Location: MOG from North Somerset. '67 pick-up, '68 pick-up, ' 69 pick-up '70 pick-up, '71 pick-up.
Posted: May 17, 2007 - 01:15 AM

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Yup, fraid so. The fuels aren't interchangeable at all. Don't try to start it again on diesel - it won't go, and (I'm guessing) may cause damage. You may be looking at replacing plugs, I'd have thought, but I hope that's it. Fingers crossed here, good luck with eferything. I don't doubt others will be able to offer better advice, watch this space

_________________
Andrew


One day...
http://bigginger.blogspot.com/



Packedup
Minor Legend


Joined: Aug 02, 2005
Posts: 1452

Posted: May 17, 2007 - 01:45 AM

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My old Metro came to me filled with diesel. Never wanted to run smoothly up hills, and smelt very "hot" (temp sender was broken when I got it).

Other than that it did actually perform pretty well all things considered!

I only realised it had the wrong fuel when checking the inline filter, and noticing the drips from it felt more oily and had completely the wrong aroma...

I did the head gasket on that car (well, I did a decoke so had to change HG), and there were no signs of long term damage from the diesel.

_________________
Ooh, it's all gone purple. But otherwise all that changes is the date...
The lazy way to derustify



iddy
Minor Fan


Joined: Jun 28, 2005
Posts: 252
Location: Porthcawl. South Wales.
Posted: May 17, 2007 - 05:23 AM

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Is this a wind up

Perhaps you should ask the two nice old ladies to drain the petrol tank and repair the bumper

Iddy

_________________
First things first, but not necessarily in that order.

[bigginger]

Worth trying to move it, then I'll try again...
a

[Gareth]

Made me laugh, that!

[RogerRust]

Wish I'd written it - my sort of joke too!

[alex_holden]

I looked through the other pranks on his site, and I think the joke quickly gets old when he posts follow-up responses claiming to be insulted that nobody is taking his question seriously.

[moggydriver62]

to Ron Summers.I ran my 1958 morris.on diesel fuel,
itook out the spark plugs and poured in some
christmas pudding it raised the compresion so that when
you put the plugs back,it will run ,but the exhaust smells
like cake I had to use usa diesel as we cant get G B fuel
over here, Hope this helps you. kenny.

[Kevin]

and poured in some christmas pudding

Is my calendar wrong its not the 1st April is it.