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If you need to prevent gelling, get Stanadyne Performance Formula fuel conditioner. For extreme temperatures, use double the amount.
I find that I have good luck with it. I have kind of a different situation. First off, my F250 is running a 3208 Catapilar Diesel. Secondly, my pickup holds 147 gallons of fuel. As a result, fuel may be in my tank for a long time. For instance, the last time I put fuel in it was last June. Of course, at that time there was only #2 at the pump. The last few days it has been -15° or colder. I put in the recommended dose of Power Service and have had no trouble. I have always relied on Power Service to keep me going at -20° or warmer and have had reliable results, unless I hell up because of water in the filter. If I time it right so that I fill up after the truck stop starts blending fuel, I don't have any problems, but if I don't time it right, then I rely on Power Service. Have never had to walk. Why would I switch from Power Service.
Quote:
Originally Posted by attrapereves
Don't stations switch over to a winter formula that should prevent gelling down to a certain temperature?
I'm in Missouri, but I started my old diesel Benz in 5 degree weather this morning without any issues.
It depends. New trucks, these days, are set up with a heater system. Fuel tanks are wrapped and heated, as are the fuel lines, injector pumps.... all heated so that they can save money by running #2, all winter long. It hasn't happened yet, but with increasing numbers of these trucks, will truck stops install new tanks and new pumps so they have #2 available, or will they stop blending and expect you to figure things out on your end? In Sheridan, there is only one place to purchase #1 so you can blend it yourself and that is Coop.
I've heard so many conflicting things about winter diesel fuel. Some people say that additives are 100% necessary, while others say they are not, as long as you purchase fuel from a reputable station in a northern state.
Many Canadians on the Chevy Cruze forums claim that their diesel Cruze starts fine well down into frigid cold Canadian winters. I think I've read of one or two gelling stories, but it was always attributed to poor quality fuel.
Obviously Missouri isn't as cold as the upper Midwest, but I've never had any gelling issues down here with my vintage Benz using standard fuel.
I've heard so many conflicting things about winter diesel fuel. Some people say that additives are 100% necessary, while others say they are not, as long as you purchase fuel from a reputable station in a northern state.
Many Canadians on the Chevy Cruze forums claim that their diesel Cruze starts fine well down into frigid cold Canadian winters. I think I've read of one or two gelling stories, but it was always attributed to poor quality fuel.
Obviously Missouri isn't as cold as the upper Midwest, but I've never had any gelling issues down here with my vintage Benz using standard fuel.
And what you have heard is correct. Diesel Fuel grows moss, if you will. It needs to circulate and be used. When you say reputable stations, it just needs to be a station that sells a fair amount of fuel so that they are getting, new, clean fuel. Not a station that has fuel in their tanks getting old. CIRCULATE WITH NEW FUEL. So if you fill up at a station that does an fair amount of business, you are good to go.
In my case, with large capacity, I have to change filters about 3. times a year,, simply because my fuel gets old. There is a filter on that engine, for a reason.
Diesel, #2, is good to -5°, with no additives (-5 leaves a safety margin, depending on exposure of lines, pump, etc... every engine / pump / tank / lines is different). Some will gel at -7, some will be fine down to about -20.. So we'll say with new filter, good fuel, etc... you are good to -5°. Now put additive in it. Still with everything else good, you should be good to -20°. Really doesn't make any difference in additives. I would bet that if you had each one analyzed, there is not .02 cents worth of difference.
zone of the problems is, after the temp drops is when the truck stop starts blending the fuel. That's too late because you filled up yesterday and the temp dropped today. You still have #2 in you truck.. Also, they don't just go to a 50/50 blend, right away. They start out at 10/90 and then go to 30/70 and finally go to 50/50. So, your best bet is to blend it yourself. That's what I mention, in Sheridan there. is only ONE place that sells #1 and that is coop.
I wonder if there are fuel tank and line heaters available in the aftermarket similar to the standard block heaters?
there are fuel tank immersion heaters, adhesive pad heaters, magnetic attaching heaters.
there are many variations of fuel heaters, including in-line electric (110v or 12v), fuel filter heater pads or conductive heaters attaching to the filter housing, in-line heaters warmed by engine coolant, and so forth.
a search on-line will give you many options to choose from.
The tractor has a block heater and a transmissions heater that get plugged
Fuel tank on the NH tractor is 50 gallons plastic, odd shaped, Guess a big adhesive pad heater would help. in. the dang lines are some plastic composite, I just get out the Fuel space heater (150,000 BTU)and point it at the tank and the side of the tractor with filter, and injector pump. Every year the first -30 -40 she jells and I put on a new fuel filter even if one was just put on., I knew better should have put the heater on it before even starting it.
The Duramax we just trapped and let the space heater blow on it for a little over an hour.
And what you have heard is correct. Diesel Fuel grows moss, if you will. It needs to circulate and be used. When you say reputable stations, it just needs to be a station that sells a fair amount of fuel so that they are getting, new, clean fuel. Not a station that has fuel in their tanks getting old. CIRCULATE WITH NEW FUEL. So if you fill up at a station that does an fair amount of business, you are good to go.
In my case, with large capacity, I have to change filters about 3. times a year,, simply because my fuel gets old. There is a filter on that engine, for a reason.
Diesel, #2, is good to -5°, with no additives (-5 leaves a safety margin, depending on exposure of lines, pump, etc... every engine / pump / tank / lines is different). Some will gel at -7, some will be fine down to about -20.. So we'll say with new filter, good fuel, etc... you are good to -5°. Now put additive in it. Still with everything else good, you should be good to -20°. Really doesn't make any difference in additives. I would bet that if you had each one analyzed, there is not .02 cents worth of difference.
zone of the problems is, after the temp drops is when the truck stop starts blending the fuel. That's too late because you filled up yesterday and the temp dropped today. You still have #2 in you truck.. Also, they don't just go to a 50/50 blend, right away. They start out at 10/90 and then go to 30/70 and finally go to 50/50. So, your best bet is to blend it yourself. That's what I mention, in Sheridan there. is only ONE place that sells #1 and that is coop.
Isn't winter formula diesel basically just summer diesel with some kerosene mixed in? I guess you could mix a little bit of kerosene to lower the freeze temp.
I change my filters yearly, but my 300D only holds 20gal. I fill it up 1-2 times a month. I always try to get diesel from larger volume stations from a reputable company. Any truck stop works. Phillips 66, Conoco, Shell, BP, and Valero should all be good too. I avoid local/rural stations that aren't on major highways.
Some of the guys on the diesel Peach Parts forum have reported getting poor quality fuel that caused loss of power and super stinky exhaust. Biobor and Diesel 911 seemed to fix problems temporarily.
On another note, some people dump some two stroke oil when they fill up. They claim that the extra lubrication helps cut down on chatter. I've never tried it. Do you have any experience with two stroke oil in diesel engines?
Isn't winter formula diesel basically just summer diesel with some kerosene mixed in? I guess you could mix a little bit of kerosene to lower the freeze temp.
Essentially so. #1 Diesel and Kerosene are pretty similar fuels.
In the older M-B diesel owner's handbooks, they advised using Kerosene to dilute the #2 diesel fuel in winter months. In the even older models (200 & 220D's), the manual advised to dilute with gasoline and they had a chart showing how much to use for a given temperature range. The premise was that the gasoline would help in the starting of the engine and as the diesel fuel return warmed up the tank, the gasoline would vaporize out the vented cap. Not a very emissions compliant approach, but it must have worked well enough for M-B engineers to advise doing so at the time.
I change my filters yearly, but my 300D only holds 20gal. I fill it up 1-2 times a month. I always try to get diesel from larger volume stations from a reputable company. Any truck stop works. Phillips 66, Conoco, Shell, BP, and Valero should all be good too. I avoid local/rural stations that aren't on major highways.
many of those "local/rural" stations supply fuel to farms and ranches that use more diesel fuel than the stations catering to passenger vehicle use. I buy most of my diesel fuel from such a supplier and have never had any issue with it.
Some of the guys on the diesel Peach Parts forum have reported getting poor quality fuel that caused loss of power and super stinky exhaust. Biobor and Diesel 911 seemed to fix problems temporarily.
I've bought diesel fuel on the road for my M-B diesels from major truck stops that had a significantly lower energy content or Cetane rating than I normally got. Could see 2-6 mpg reduction in the fuel economy of that tankful.
On another note, some people dump some two stroke oil when they fill up. They claim that the extra lubrication helps cut down on chatter. I've never tried it. Do you have any experience with two stroke oil in diesel engines?
Haven't used two stroke oil, but for years when we changed customers M-B fuel filters, we would pre-fill them with ATF Dexron. Did a marvelous job of cleaning out the injection pumps and injector deposits. The local M-B dealers used to get upset with us doing so because their approach was to replace injectors (RX injectors, not a matched set which we could do by snap testing with new nozzles in an injector body and setting the spring pressure shims to match) rather than attempt to clean them and we were taking a lot of business away from them. I had a discussion with the M-B service manager at a dealership one day about this, and he admitted that for the dealership customers ... if they caught them doing so, it "might void the warranty". But in another conversation, he admitted doing the ATF pre-fill in his own 300TDt wagon for the same reasons that I did. Anyway, the lower lubricity of the current ULSD fuel is not a good thing in the older M-B mechanical injection pumps and adding some fuel conditioners ... or a pint of ATF to a tank of fuel in your car is a good strategy. Alternatively, a pint of Marvel Mystery Oil per tankful is OK and will also help with the Cetane rating on poorer fuels ... but it's more expensive than ATF and I wouldn't claim that it works better if you are maintaining your diesel fuel already with your preferred conditioner; subjectively, I think many of the older diesel engines do sound better using this stuff. YMMV.
My 2000 F250 PSD was my daily driver from the time it was new until I traded it a couple months ago and always sat outside. It jelled up on me one morning about 5 years ago while driving my wife to work. It was around -30F (with -60F chill factor) that morning, and the truck wasn't running too smoothly, but it's only two miles to my wife's place of employment. We got about halfway there and it stopped. Luckily, we were only a block or two from my son's house, so we ran over there. Even more luckily, he was home and able to give us rides. I used anti-gel additive after that, any time it was below zero.
Kerosine and #1 are basically the same thing, well, close. They start blending abut mid December, here, and they only use a small mix until the temp drops further. Coop, here, has a pump for kerosine, another pump for #1 and in the past I have used either, when needed.
I use Power Service, every tank. Pretty cheap additive and I don't know if I'm going to get more fuel be for the temp drops. I'll put it this way, it is several months between fuel stops so the other concern is accumulating moisture, so Power Service every tank.
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