If you had any significant amount of diesel fuel in there you would know
it. Excessive engine smoking and a rising crankcase oil level are the
first symptoms. Then comes fouled spark plugs and clogged injectors. If
it is running fine without grey smoke, there is not a significant amount
of diesel in there.

Dennis

-----Original Message-----
From: Vanagon Mailing List [mailto:vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com] On Behalf
Of Warren.K.Lail-1
Sent: Tuesday, January 27, 2004 8:02 PM
To: vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM
Subject: contaminated fuel?

Hi all,

I could use some help here. I filled my 87 GL up last week at a local
Conoco station, drove home, and thought I smelled diesel fuel.  I live
in an old apartment and assumed it was coming from a neighbor's car.  I
have not driven my bus more than 75 miles since then.  This morning I
developed a gasoline line leak and realized that the diesel smell was
coming from MY bus!  I checked my receipt and I had pumped "Regular
Unleaded," about 13.5 gallons of it.  I replaced the fuel line and
called the state agency responsible for fuels.  They sent a rep out who
tested the pump at the Conoco station and found that the octane (87.3)
suggested that there was no diesel in it, but the gentleman told me that
since a week had passed, that tank had probably been refilled by now.

So my question is this - how damaging can this be to my engine?  It
seems to run fine. I'm not getting any spark knock or anything, so maybe
I just have a small amount of contamination.  Should I drain the tank or
just dilute it and run it out?  This sort of thing bothers me,
especially at a time when I've got the engine and tranny out of my other
bus.

Thanks for the help.

Warren
88 Westy "Billy Bones" (in dry dock)
87 GL (non-diesel!)