20 50 or EP90

[Paul H]

In a very senior moment I think I’ve added 20/50 into an empty tin of EP90 . Is there a way of telling the 2 apart 

Paul 

[Iain T]

I find EP always has a tell tale smell. 

Iain 

[johny]

20/50 should be quite a bit thinner than EP90 so can you get some of the latter for a timed drain hole test of the two?

[poppyman]

1 hour ago, Iain T said:

I find EP always has a tell tale smell. 

Iain 

I agree, it smells like cat pee...

Tony.

[SpitFire6]

55 minutes ago, johny said:

20/50 should be quite a bit thinner than EP90 so can you get some of the latter for a timed drain hole test of the two?

Other way round?

PS. Now I see the chart; EP90 is indeed thicker at lower temperatures.

Edited December 29, 2020 by SpitFire6
Added Chart

[Colin Lindsay]

It's a lovely vegetably smell, and often green in colour. Not always tho.

However going by the original post - if the tin was empty then whatever is in it isn't contaminated or mixed, so find the rest of the 20/50 and compare the two ie colour and smell. If there's none left, what did it originally come out of?

[Andy Moss]

If you can’t smell the difference - maybe have a Covid test. I hate the smell of hypoid gear oil. Dismantled an old coil when I was a kid. Even to this day it turns my stomach. Give it a sniff. 

[Iain T]

39 minutes ago, Colin Lindsay said:

It's a lovely vegetably smell,

For once I have to disagree, no amount of scrubbing gets the pong off your hands! Makes you stop picking your nose.... 

[Pete Lewis]

think  its more like cats pee preferably a tom cat 

Pete

[ahebron]

My elderly father (88) is a great one for decanting oils etc into different containers then marking on them with permanent marker. Permanent marker is not when volatiles are around.

I will only decant to like containers.

 

Adrian

[thescrapman]

13 hours ago, Pete Lewis said:

think  its more like cats pee preferably a tom cat 

Pete

Good old EP smells of cat pee, the modern ones don't. Obviously substituting the smelly compounds for synthetic ones

[RogerH]

15 hours ago, Andy Moss said:

If you can’t smell the difference - maybe have a Covid test. I hate the smell of hypoid gear oil. Dismantled an old coil when I was a kid. Even to this day it turns my stomach. Give it a sniff. 

That may have been a mineral type oil.

In the 1970's I used to do X-ray inspections on aircraft at BEA. The X-ray tubes were quite heavy and would get dragged along the hangar floor to position the exposure.

On rare occasions a tube casing would get a leak where it got worn through. This produced a stream of hot pressurised mineral oil. The smell could clear a hangar of hairy engineers in minutes.

 

Roger

[NonMember]

16 hours ago, Andy Moss said:

Dismantled an old coil when I was a kid.

 

31 minutes ago, RogerH said:

This produced a stream of hot pressurised mineral oil. The smell could clear a hangar of hairy engineers in minutes.

Back when I started at Rover, we had a bench test rig for the MEMS ECU with a high energy wet coil on it. The ECU on that rig had a debugger (actually an "In-circuit emulator" or ICE) fitted so that we could investigate software issues. You could put breakpoints so that the CPU stopped when a particular set of conditions occurred, then step through one instruction at a time. More often that not, the conditions you were interested in happened while the coil was charging, and the breakpoint would leave it turned on... for several minutes... until the oil in the coil boiled and sprayed out of the vent hole.

[ahebron]

Mineral oil or PCB was used in some of the power transformers about town when I was doing my time.
If you needed a spare pair of overalls for your self or someone the same size we would get our current overalls splashed with PCB, get a new pair then take the old pair home to mum to wash.
Old flourescent ballasts used it and you know when they start to leak. They are supposed to be disposed of in special containers.

Adrian

[Roger K]

On 30/12/2020 at 00:54, ahebron said:

My elderly father (88) is a great one for decanting oils etc into different containers then marking on them with permanent marker. Permanent marker is not when volatiles are around.

I will only decant to like containers.

 

Adrian

I once stopped off at my parents' house late one night whilst they were away on holiday because the low fuel light had come on on my 3-month-old Audi Coupé's dashboard and the local filling station was closed.  Pulled a couple of red metal cans out of the garage with 'PETROL' written on them in white Humbrol and poured the contents down the filler.  Ran fine to get home to Cambridge, but would it start the next morning?  No chance....  I could just get it to idle, but it died with the gentlest throttle application.  After idling for 10 mins it was warm enough to run round to the nearest filling station to brim with 5-star, thereby diluting the PARAFFIN to safe levels.  Never trusted his cans again after that...

[poppyman]

Got the T shirt for that one Roger, my father in law was the same. It was Paraffin in his petrol cans as well .....

Tony.

[Pete Lewis]

lucky it didnt upset   the exhaust  lamda      02 sensors  

when a simple Oops  starts to make ££££ss    fly away 

Pete

[Sparky_Spit]

When I was a lad I used to run my scooter on a TVO (Tractor Vapourising Oil, Paraffin basically ) /oil mix, from the farm where I worked on Saturdays, to get to and from college during the week. If I was particularly skint I'd use my brother's cricket bat oil (linseed?) instead of two-stroke oil.  I needed to be careful to run it on petrol to start it up, as it wouldn't start with TVO, and I had a fish tank air-line tube and plastic 3-way tap which I switched over from a Fairy Liquid bottle of proper petrol/oil mix to my "free" home brew once  I was a few miles down the road, and then did the reverse just before getting to my destination.  I did have to change the plastic fish tank airline tube every now and again as the petrol used to melt it over time.  Those were the days...

[ahebron]

18 hours ago, Roger K said:

I once stopped off at my parents' house late one night whilst they were away on holiday because the low fuel light had come on on my 3-month-old Audi Coupé's dashboard and the local filling station was closed.  Pulled a couple of red metal cans out of the garage with 'PETROL' written on them in white Humbrol and poured the contents down the filler.  Ran fine to get home to Cambridge, but would it start the next morning?  No chance....  I could just get it to idle, but it died with the gentlest throttle application.  After idling for 10 mins it was warm enough to run round to the nearest filling station to brim with 5-star, thereby diluting the PARAFFIN to safe levels.  Never trusted his cans again after that...

I have to careful as my Dad also uses red petrol cans for diesel but luckily the only petrol vehicle he has is the Lagonda Rapier which is old enough to just need a flush if they get mixed.

[dave.vitesse]

You can't beat that smell of hot EP90 on the exhaust first thing in the morning. You know you are driving a classic.

Dave  

[poppyman]

You can now have the smell of Castrol "R" in the house anytime you want.    https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Handmade-Fuel-Scented-Candle-Castrol-R40-Two-Stroke-Man-Cave-Petrol-Christmas/193770743309?hash=item2d1da2e60d:g:6hAAAOSwIy1fvq6r     I don't think they have done one with EP 90 yet. You could get a cat with nuts......

Tony.

[GFL]

1 hour ago, dave.vitesse said:

You can't beat that smell of hot EP90 on the exhaust first thing in the morning. You know you are driving a classic.

Dave  

Don't you mean a Classic Triumph Dave😆

[Roger K]

51 minutes ago, Gary Flinn said:

Don't you mean a Classic Triumph Dave😆

Nah, doesn't come close to a classic Land Rover.  EP everywhere, can leak from all four wheels, steering swivels, diff casings, gearbox, transfer case, L/H ratio box, overdrive....

[poppyman]

7 minutes ago, Roger K said:

Nah, doesn't come close to a classic Land Rover.  EP everywhere, can leak from all four wheels, steering swivels, diff casings, gearbox, transfer case, L/H ratio box, overdrive....

Now they do leak oil worse than a Triumph   

Tony.