Petrol Tips

With Petrol expected to reach $2 per litre by end of 2011, these tips that I received from a friend might come in handy.                                                      TIPS ON PUMPING PETROL

I don’t know what you guys are paying for Petrololine…. but here in Melbourne we are paying up to $1.30 to $1.50 per litre. My line of work is in petroleum for about 31 years now, so here are some tricks to get more of your money’s worth for every Litre:

Here at the Shell Pipeline where I work in Melbourne, we deliver about 4 million litres in a 24-hour period thru the pipeline.. One day is diesel the next day is jet fuel, and Petrololine, regular and premium grades. We have 34-storage tanks here with a total capacity of 16,800,000 Litres.

Only buy or fill up your car or truck in the early morning when the ground temperature is still cold. Remember that all service stations have their storage tanks buried below ground. The colder the ground the more dense the Petrololine, when it gets warmer Petrololine expands, so buying in the afternoon or in the evening….your litre is not exactly a litre. In the petroleum business, the specific gravity and the temperature of the Petrololine, diesel and jet fuel, ethanol and other petroleum products plays an important role.

A 1-degree rise in temperature is a big deal for this business. But the service stations do not have temperature compensation at the pumps. When you’re filling up do not squeeze the trigger of the nozzle to a fast mode If you look you will see that the trigger has three (3) stages: low, middle, and high. You should be pumping on low mode, thereby minimizing the vapors that are created while you are pumping. All hoses at the pump have a vapor return. If you are pumping on the fast rate, some of the liquid that goes to your tank becomes vapor. Those vapors are being sucked up and back into the underground storage tank so you’re getting less worth for your money.

 

One of the most important tips is to fill up when your Petrol tank is HALF FULL. The reason for this is the more Petrol you have in your tank the less air occupying its empty space.. Petrololine evaporates faster than you can imagine. Petrololine storage tanks have an internal floating roof. This roof serves as zero clearance between the Petrol and the atmosphere, so it minimizes the evaporation. Unlike service stations, here where I work, every truck that we load is temperature compensated so that every litre is actually the exact amount.

Another reminder, if there is a Petrololine truck pumping into the storage tanks when you stop to buy Petrol, DO NOT fill up; most likely the Petrololine is being stirred up as the Petrol is being delivered, and you might pick up some of the dirt that normally settles on the bottom.

To have an impact, we need to reach literally millions of Petrol buyers. It’s really simple to do.

Again, all you have to do is send this to 10 people. How long would it take?

Jammed Starter Motors

At times the starter motor can jam on Sprites. Mine does it about 3 times a year. When it first happened I got under the bonnet and put a spanner on the starter motor shaft and if I turned the nut the right way it released. If I turned it the wrong way, it jammed ‘big time’. So then I had to loosen off the stater motor retaining bolts and then turn the shaft with a spanner, and then re-tighten them. this required removing the front wheel to get access to the bottom bolt. Then I was shown the short cut. Put the car into 4th gear, turn off the ignition, release the handbrake. Get out of the car and ‘rock it’ back and forth till you hear ‘ping’ noise. Then you know it is released, and then the car will start.   A Series Engine History Austin Motor Company’s small straight-4 automobile engine, the A-Series, is one of the most common in the world. Launched in 1951 with the Austin A30, production lasted into the 1990s in the Mini. The A-Series design was licensed by Nissan of Japan, along with other Austin designs. That company quickly began modifying the A-Series, and it became the basis for many of the following Nissan engines.

Correct Engine Paint

After removing the motor from my Mk111 sprite for an oil leak I decided it needed a coat of paint. Finding engine enamel in the correct colour green turned out to be more difficult than what I thought. I thought about going down to the local paint shop with the rocker cover and have some regular enamel mixed but how long would that last in such a harsh environment? I jumped on the net and found a product make in the US called POR 15 engine enamel which comes in BMC green. It was a bit expensive at $55 a 1 pint can from Paint Supplies and unfortunately it doesn’t come in a spray can. I then dropped into the boys at Ian Jones Auto Spares and they put it into a couple pressure packs for me, far easier than washing out the gun after every coat. After giving the motor a good clean I started spraying to find the paint is very thin and very slow drying (24 hrs between coats). Three days and three coats later I found the paint to dry incredibly tough with a good shine. See photo