Was it these guys?
Posted on 08/16/2005 11:28:00 AM PDT by Abathar
NAPPANEE, Ind. -- The high cost of gasoline may have driven them to do it. Picking the wrong fuel pump cut short their getaway.
Two men who tried to steal gasoline from a construction company instead filled the tank of their car with off-road-grade diesel fuel Sunday, police said.
An employee of Beer & Slabaugh spotted the men on the company property near Nappanee, about 20 miles southeast of South Bend, as they were siphoning fuel out of the car's tank, Elkhart County deputies said.
The two told the employee that a friend had put the wrong fuel into the tank and they were trying to empty it, deputies said. The employee noticed that the fuel was the distinctive red color of off-road diesel.
He called deputies, who arrested McKinley Chase, 21, and Dajuan L. Lord, 19, both of Gary, on preliminary charges of felony. They acknowledged the theft explaining their mistake and saying their car would not run.
Lord remained in the Elkhart County Jail on Tuesday. Chase was released on bond, a jail spokeswoman said.
Not the brightest bulbs in the universe.
Was it these guys?
LOL! That was my first mental picture too
LoL! They travel in pairs now.
Why is a construction company using off-road diesel?
Too funny.
Maybe they were Mennonites ????
Gasoline is often thought of as being a single chemical, but it's actually a complex mixture of hydrocarbons that generally have 4 to 12 carbon atoms in their molecules....
Diesel fuel is a light oil that is heavier than gasoline, composed of hydrocarbons generally having between 10 and 20 carbon atoms in their molecules ...
What happens when you use gasoline in a diesel engine? Either something expensive or something very expensive. Since gasoline is designed to be resistant to self-ignition, gasoline in a diesel engine either won't ignite or will ignite at the wrong time. Some diesel engines run leaner than gasoline engines (meaning that the air-fuel mix has a higher proportion of air than a gasoline engine). That increases the chances that the gasoline won't ignite and that unburnt fuel will be sent into the hot exhaust system--where, ironically, it could ignite, leading to possible exhaust damage. Even if you avoid that disaster, you can expect to pay $500 to drain the fuel tank, clean out the fuel lines, and refill the tank with diesel.
Trying to use diesel fuel in a gasoline engine also has unpleasant consequences, but generally not as dire in terms of damage to the fuel system. Depending on the proportion of diesel fuel relative to gas in the tank, a gasoline engine will either run poorly or stop altogether, necessitating another $500 trip to the repair shop for draining and flushing. A couple of old grease monkeys at the shop I used to work at claimed that their "super high-compression" gasoline engines of the late 1960s could easily switch between gasoline and diesel fuel with no problems, but I tend to think they spent too much time inhaling fumes from the carburetor cleaning tank.
click on the link for more info.
Why pay a road tax when you're bulldozing a 40 acre field? (That's why the diesel has dye in it. Farmers can get the same diesel).
It's the same as on-road diesel, except for the color. It's taxed at a different rate, because they're exempt from road tax for the fuel they burn off-road.
There are companies working on road building & re-building in the area. Wouldn't they use off-road diesel?
I didn't know if construction was covered. Thanks for answering my question.
I’ve heard of that but never actually seen it.
We delivered to plenty of farms and it was always the same diesel everyone else got - just without the taxes. Only thing I can remember about the color was that Texaco had the most beautiful honey colored diesel you’ve ever seen. Tosco and ARCO always had muddy looking diesel – and they could have been doing fuel swaps because one then the other were running out at that time.
Just D'oh!
Here in Indiana the stuff is a super dark purple color, state troopers are always going to places where farmers meet and sticking a white rag into the fuel tanks to check the fuel. I was at an auction once where every five minutes the cops would ask who drove such and such truck and would they meet them outside. 2K ticket right on the spot.
Just damn.
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I love the smell of parts cleaning solvent in the morning.
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