Hello folks, a noob here to the BITOG forums, though have been lurking for quite a few years. I have an old Winco Tri-Fuel TF6000E, a hand-me-down, my brother got a new generator. It runs fine and I intend to run it primarily on gasoline, but I want to set it up with the capability to run natural gas from the house in case I have to. Question is... Since NG is a "dry" fuel, and this causes increased valve wear according to what I read, is this a reason to find a special NG oil? Or, as little as it would be used, just nothing to worry about? Right now, it's running Synthetic 5W-30 year round. The dedicated NG oils I have found online also tend to be higher viscosities than regular engine oils.
Generator on Natural Gas
- Thread starter KevinGC
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More in line with needing hardened valve seats and maybe different valve guides. For emergency use on NG with gasoline being the primary fuel I wouldn't worry too much about it. Being that it was built to run on either it should have the internals needed for it. I'd look at what they recommend for oil and go from there.
Originally Posted by KevinGC
Hello folks, a noob here to the BITOG forums, though have been lurking for quite a few years. I have an old Winco Tri-Fuel TF6000E, a hand-me-down, my brother got a new generator. It runs fine and I intend to run it primarily on gasoline, but I want to set it up with the capability to run natural gas from the house in case I have to. Question is... Since NG is a "dry" fuel, and this causes increased valve wear according to what I read, is this a reason to find a special NG oil? Or, as little as it would be used, just nothing to worry about? Right now, it's running Synthetic 5W-30 year round. The dedicated NG oils I have found online also tend to be higher viscosities than regular engine oils.
No. The special oils for natural gas are low ash, it doesn't have anything to do with lubrication. Everything that needs lubrication in the engine is going to get it regardless of the fuel. The whole "dry" fuel thing is a myth, the engine gets lubrication by design not from the fuel.
Hello folks, a noob here to the BITOG forums, though have been lurking for quite a few years. I have an old Winco Tri-Fuel TF6000E, a hand-me-down, my brother got a new generator. It runs fine and I intend to run it primarily on gasoline, but I want to set it up with the capability to run natural gas from the house in case I have to. Question is... Since NG is a "dry" fuel, and this causes increased valve wear according to what I read, is this a reason to find a special NG oil? Or, as little as it would be used, just nothing to worry about? Right now, it's running Synthetic 5W-30 year round. The dedicated NG oils I have found online also tend to be higher viscosities than regular engine oils.
No. The special oils for natural gas are low ash, it doesn't have anything to do with lubrication. Everything that needs lubrication in the engine is going to get it regardless of the fuel. The whole "dry" fuel thing is a myth, the engine gets lubrication by design not from the fuel.
In my experience, with propane forklifts, the oil (regular auto oil) comes out almost as clean
as it went in. gaseous fuel is very clean burning.
My 2¢
as it went in. gaseous fuel is very clean burning.
My 2¢
Originally Posted by ironman_gq
More in line with needing hardened valve seats and maybe different valve guides. For emergency use on NG with gasoline being the primary fuel I wouldn't worry too much about it. Being that it was built to run on either it should have the internals needed for it. I'd look at what they recommend for oil and go from there.
They don't change guides/seats in regular vehicles when they are switched over to CNG/LP and they are fine.
Do you have some information to support this?
More in line with needing hardened valve seats and maybe different valve guides. For emergency use on NG with gasoline being the primary fuel I wouldn't worry too much about it. Being that it was built to run on either it should have the internals needed for it. I'd look at what they recommend for oil and go from there.
They don't change guides/seats in regular vehicles when they are switched over to CNG/LP and they are fine.
Do you have some information to support this?
If you have natural gas line to your house, USE IT!!! Forget gasoline!!
Run it every couple months for ten minutes to keep it in good condition. No need for gasoline.
Run it every couple months for ten minutes to keep it in good condition. No need for gasoline.
No need to any thing special, oil-wise, for running on natural gas. In fact, natural gas tends to be vastly easier on the engine than gasoline. Fewer valve and combustion chamber deposits, less (no) oil dilution, higher effective octane. If you have a NG supply, I would not even consider gasoline except as an emergency backup fuel.
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