Dissel fuel

fastfarmall

Well-known Member
I was in town putting diesel in my pick up, blending it myself, the guy next to me said it's going to get -20 below tomorrow so i put in straight No1. I said but that doesn't have any lubricant in it. well i add Power Service to it showing me the jug! He had a nice 2-3 yr old Ford F-350, i didn't hear it run so cant tell you what engine it had, but will that be enough lubricant for the fuel system.I always figured half and half and some Howes is all i needed for 25 below F. what do u think diesel tech and others ??
 
You will be fine without any "snake oil".

Can you imagine the liability potential if a legitimate "gas station" sold fuel that would "kill" your engine?
 
This debate comes up every so often here. I still believe fuel is already blended for the area it is sold in. So if you are in ND it will be blended for that area. If you are in South TX it is blended for that area. The problem is when you buy the South TX fuel, and go to ND with it still in your tank. Then you may have some problems. Or if you go to a place that doesn't have much turn over in fuel sales, and still has a lot of summer fuel in their tank. And you buy it in the winter before it gets sold, and winter fuel is put in the tank for you to pump.
I ran all over the country and never bought anything for fuel. I would go from MI to FL ,or to west coast of WA. And even ran the rockies, in the winter time from WA to CO and back through UT,WY,MY,ID,without problems. No the truck did not idle all the time either. Pulled into the Ranchand truck stop in Id one time shut it off and started it the next morning. It got to -28 F that night.
 
We have 2 entirely different scenarios here. You VERY LIKELY had an in-tank fuel heater that preheated fuel with hot water from the cooling system. You will never have a cold related problem, even with straight #2 fuel, as long as the cooling system gets up to 100* before the fuel gels in the pickup tube, lines, fittings, valves, or fuel filter. As long as water temp got above the cloud point of the fuel, the fuel heater prevented future problems as well as remedied any previous gel problems. (warm fuel melts out accumulated wax)
Most times here, we are talking about a tractor, which VERY LIKELY has NO fuel heating mechanism. If you expect temps in the teens or lower, I would advise some precautions concerning blends of fuel and anti-gel additives.
 
The guy with the newer F-350 will be fine. Every version of a PowerStroke engine had an electric fuel heater somewhere on the engine to prevent gelling. When I actually saw what was in my '96 7.3L PSD I was glad I always bought Winterized blended fuel and put the recommended dose of Power Service from the white bottle in. Never had a diesel gell on me, tractor, pickup, semi, never!

Now, you are running a 50-50 blend at the pump? You can get straight #1 diesel? And the other fuel is what? Winterized #2? And your not adding Power Service, or Howes, or Stanadyne, or anything? If you put half Winterized fuel in and half #1, your fuel is 3/4ths #1. You will be O-K at 20 below but there's probably better cheaper ways to prevent gelling and lubricate the Injection system.

Thing that aggrivated me the most was before big changes in weather in fall and winter I would ask the kids behind the counter if their fuel was Winterized and to what temperature and without fail their answer was "Huh?"
Straight #1 costs you about 5 to 10% lower power and lower fuel mileage, fewer BTU's per gallon.
 
No I don't have heaters in the tanks. So the fuel is not heated till the engine warms up enough to keep the fuel from freezing. On my 1991 didn't have heaters in the tanks Just relied on the return fuel from the engine. The B model cat didn't have as much return fuel as the 2000 with the C-15 engine.
Our tractors are not treated except for what the Distributor does before they deliver it. We don't put anything in it. If there is a problem there it was because the filter didn't get changed as it should. Dad didn't believe in changing them on a regular basis. I change them each spring and the high use tractors in the fall also.
 
Well, here?s my story from last winter. I?m not looking for a confrontation. I only print this as ?food for thought?.
I bought a brand new Massy Ferguson 1754 (54 HP) tractor with a cab and front mount snowblower.
About in February, I filled my 5-gallon jugs at the local Cenex/Heartland Coop, at the automotive pump, because they don?t retail off road fuel.
I took the jugs home, added 1 ounce of Howe?s per 2.5 gallons, the recommended rate for temps to zero. I went to blow snow in temps about 10-12 degrees below zero F. I was out about 3-4 minutes when the tractor lost power for 3 seconds, recovered for a couple seconds, lost power, recovered, and did this several times, then quit entirely. I waited about a minute, then cranked the engine. It started and I high tailed it back to the unheated garage and closed the door. I put a heat lamp on the fuel filters overnight, and added more anti-gel. The next day was a bit warmer, maybe 5 below. The tractor ran fine.
The lesson here is to add sufficient anti-gel BEFORE the engine quits. When the filters gel up in the yard, that?s one thing. If you gel up in the middle of nowhere, in the middle of the night, you will be in SERIOUS trouble.
I was a Class 8 (semi) mechanic for part of my life. Fuel gelling is real. Don?t depend on the fuel retailer. If gelling didn?t strike you, consider yourself lucky.
Again, I?m not trying to step on any toes here, but this is my experience.
 
Thats why my retailer has got straight 1 and number 2, i like to blend it myself,only gelled up once, that was when Bio diesel first came out, and that was in my yard, and it was close to 40 below that nite, but like u say if your on the road and u gel up, it could cost u your life!
 
I used to work for a Village in NW Nebraska for 30+ years. Had a IH 966 on a snow blower, JD 310E backhoe, and a Dresser 450E Motor grader and a couple of diesel trucks for moving/hauling snow. We changed all fuel filters mid October and then in mid January no matter how few hours they may have ran. Filters are cheap compared to the problems you can have. Then filled everything up with #1 to blend at first then we just put in #1 as we needed fuel. After a couple tanks we were pretty much straight #1. Ran in weather as cold as -37 and had only one problem in those 30+ years when a new employee, not knowing we didn't use additives, dumped some "conditioner" a friend of his gave him, into a very cold tank of fuel on the grader and didn't get it mixed and not knowing the importance of getting it mixed. Basically made a slug. Stopped grader in its tracks. Got it into to a heated garage over night and mixed the fuel in tank and changed filters. No problems after that. Never used any power service or Howes. All of the equipment set in unheated shops. Which makes a difference and not setting outside. And we used block heaters on timers religiously.
 
Must be something you are doing wrong. SON had a 6.7L and it started promptly at double digits below zero with no block heater, no ether, just winterized fuel from the truck stop with the recommended dose of Power Service from the white jug. Oh, His 6.7L was an in-line 6 in a RAM 2500.

I kept my '96 7.3L PSD in my insulated shop, put the block heater on a timer, on below zero mornings it started on the first revolution. I added the recommended amount of Power Service to Winterized fuel, never a problem. SON drove it last winter, same routine, Power Service in Winterized fuel but sitting outside with block heater NOT plugged in. It cranked over a couple revolutions but started.

We installed a new piston fuel pump in the valley of the 7.3 in the spring, March or April, we replaced all the o-rings in the fuel filter, had the fuel heater out, saw it was only rated a few watts of power, decided to leave it out. That little power on that volume of fuel isn't going to raise the fuel temp very much. But you add the required amount of Power Service you won't tell up.

Lot of truck drivers used to say a gallon of regular no-lead gas per 100 gallons of #2 diesel fuel kept it from gelling. Not sure I'd run that mix through a $2400 set of HUEI injectors, or the new common rail injectors.
 
My experience is the fuel doesn't gel in the middle of nowhere unless that's where you started out. When that cold snap in early 2015 hit, several buses for the local school district gelled up but they didn't get very far down the road before they did, for example.

You're not going to drive 100 miles, get everything all warmed up to operating temperature, and have the fuel gel on you.
 

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