Diesel Fuel Additive

[mike_belben]

Call your favorite pump shop and ask them their opinions, they measure plungers and barrels all day long instead of just googling for the answer.  I use wvo as a REPLACEMENT for fuel, not a conditioner.  Ive had no trouble on any fuel yet. 

Wives tales sell a lot of product.  

[Magicman]

Mike, I understood about your biodiesel fuel, but there are also biodiesel additives which are what I was addressing and they are always on the top of the studies. 

Sadly most of the articles & studies are written and done by manufacturers peddling additives.

Southside, your question is what started me looking to begin with because the only Diesel engines that I have are older vintage.

I went back and read again and it said "high pressure common rail engines".  "The fuel refiners had to scramble to provide solutions for consumers (diesel fuel users are the consumers in this case). This is where diesel lubricity additives come in. The newly created need in the marketplace forced refineries and fuel suppliers to use more lubricity additives to ensure these ultra low sulfur diesel fuels didn't destroy engines."

I also read that it is not the actual sulfur that was providing the lubricity, but the process of removing the sulfur also reduced the lubricity.  Kind of a collateral kill.

Anyway I have older engines and it will not harm them nor break me to add the Stanadyne to the fuel.

  

[barbender]

Magic, one other property of biodiesel, as I understand it, is that it can a cleaning effect on your fuel system. That cuts both ways, it can help keep the system clean, but if you start running it on an older fuel system it can break lots of stuff loose and plug a lot of filters. We saw that up here the first year it was mandated to be blended in our fuel. We got the first cold day, and there were trucks on the side of the road everywhere! Between it plugging filters and gelling the fuel, it caused a ton of problems, to the point that the state had to do an emergency rescinding of the mandate for our winter fuels for a few years. Now we've all caught up with it, and we're running that 5-10% blend (mandated) year round without issue.

[scsmith42]

Engine oil standards also changed in the last several years for diesel engines, partially in response to the reduced sulfur in the fuel.

[barbender]

That's right, the new spec is for 5w-30, I can't remember, is it CK-4 now? The 5-30 is not backwards compatible in a lot of older engines. I was running a 2009 Ponsse forwarder with a 6 cylinder Mercedes and about 14,000 hours. Ponsse switched over to the new oil, I was sure my engine would start burning it but no problems. Sometimes have to add 1/2 to 1 gallon when approaching the 500 hour oil change, no different than the 5w-40 we were running previously.

[mike_belben]

Just to clear up a few points..  Straight 100% Waste veggie oil in a two tank system is what i ran in the dodge.  Start in diesel, get up to temp, switch over to grease when its 160F or hotter.  Stop on diesel to flush lines out.  

I have also blended wvo into stock diesel fuel tanks.  Copper senders are the devil.  


"Biodiesel" is a wvo base stock that has had the glycerin (hippie soap) removed by a cracking process that uses methanol and lye (sounds green right) to remove the glycerin and reduce the viscosity to a sprayable viscosity.  Afterward the brewer washes the methanol out of the broth.  If this isnt done thoroughly youll have a lot of alcohol remaining in your fuel and that swells and eats rubber.  Its a solvent.  


Cold plugging is generally gonna be a consequence of plant oils having a lower cloud point then petroleum.  


Sidenote of the day.  There are umpteen million dollars of grants for all the clean fuel initiatives you can dream up, and theyre all a scam.  Get caught running one tank of untaxed wvo and youre in big trouble.  Yet i have tried paying the tax via the dept of revenue in THREE states now.  Nope, we cant do that sorry. 

The green wealth transfer scheme at work. 

[Runningalucas]

Call your favorite pump shop and ask them their opinions, they measure plungers and barrels all day long instead of just googling for the answer.  I use wvo as a REPLACEMENT for fuel, not a conditioner.  Ive had no trouble on any fuel yet.

Wives tales sell a lot of product.  

Mel from Conestoga Diesel in PA, sells performance pumps for the older 7.3 idi, and I believe powerstroke; at least last I checked, his opinion was that the newer fuels do require supplemental additives.  If memory recalls correctly, he recommends the stanadyne additive. 

[DPatton]

Magic, one other property of biodiesel, as I understand it, is that it can a cleaning effect on your fuel system. That cuts both ways, it can help keep the system clean, but if you start running it on an older fuel system it can break lots of stuff loose and plug a lot of filters. We saw that up here the first year it was mandated to be blended in our fuel. We got the first cold day, and there were trucks on the side of the road everywhere! Between it plugging filters and gelling the fuel, it caused a ton of problems, to the point that the state had to do an emergency rescinding of the mandate for our winter fuels for a few years. Now we've all caught up with it, and we're running that 5-10% blend (mandated) year round without issue.

The good part about what your saying is it was plugging filters. Therefore it wasn't plugging injectors or causing performance robbing abrasive deposits. In my area of the country we start preparing for low quality fuel issues and cold weather around November 1st. Switching to a higher quality winter blend and diesel additives helps assure we never have that problem.

[woodmaker]

I have many diesels,from the early 70's to the early 2000's. All run straight pump low sulfur fuel in the summer,and get dosed with Howes beginning this time of year until March or April. The colder the forecast ,the more Howes they get. So far,I have had no pump or injector problems