Oil mix questions

[Sidecarflip]

Slightly off topic but I'm regularly surprised at the talk of the poor quality of the fuel available in North America. Does that apply to Deisel as well?
I suppose it must be due to refinery standards legislated by govts.?
For many years I never used stabil or similar although I do now. And not many average blokes I know ever use it. I have never seen canned fuel, but it is probably available in the cities.
Hardly any E10 is sold of course.
Some Aussies will probably chime in now with horror stories, maybe I've just been lucky with pump 98 and premium Deisel

I combust way more diesel than anything else actually, running 2 large frame farm tractors and a diesel pickup truck and in reality, I've had zero issues with the gummit mandated ULSD diesel fuel (Ultra Low Sulfur Diesel). I read online (of course) horror stories about how it screws up conventional high pressure injection pumps and erodes injector pintles and candidly, I've not experienced any of that. I do add a certified Biocide to my fuel (in my case Powerservice Bio-Kleen) because domestic refiners do add a percentage of bio-diesel to the ULSD at the refinery, I presume to add some lubricity (that ULSD lacks), before they sell it to retailers.

The issue is, Bio-Diesel is notorious for growing algae and having been down the algae road once before, I don't want a repeat performance. Not the algae itself that destroys injection systems, but the exoskeletons that destroy high pressure injection systems like injection pumps and injector pintles (the moving part in a high pressure diesel injector).

I went through that scenario a few years back and it cost me over a grand in parts alone and I did all the grunt work myself. New injectors, new lift pump, new filters, associated piping.. not ever again so to not have that, I added Racor fuel polishing filters between the fuel tanks and the first primary filters. The Racor's will strip out 100% of any contaminants as well as any water and they continuously filter down to 5 microns. Since installing the Racor's, I've had zero issues with fuel and that has been over 2 years ago now. If anyone wants to know the particulars, you can PM me and I'll give you the part numbers for the filter bases as well as the spin on filter part numbers and in reality, installing them is very easy and on the bottom of the spin on filters, each have a clear bowl with a drain so you can easily see what the filters are stripping out of the incoming fuel and drain it off easily.

Have them on my diesel farm tractors as well as my diesel pickup truck and one on my diesel bulk tank (500 gallon) just to make sure that I have no issues ever again. My diesel powered standby genset draws it's fuel directly from my bulk tank and I don't want issues with that either.

I summation, I have no issues with ULSD other than the potential growth of algae which I mitigate now. My tractors are all pre-4 units with conventional (Bosch style) high pressure injection pumps and conventional mechanical injectors as is my pickup truck and so is my standby genset which has a John Deere conventionally injected turbo diesel engine in it.

In reality, the Racor's are a cheap date compared to having to replace injection pumps and injectors and disposing of tainted fuel and cleaning out storage tanks and fuel tanks on equipment.

Marine operators have been Racor filtering units for years now to 'polish' incoming fuel prior to engine mounted filter units. Every big ship that is diesel powered have them as well as diesel powered pleasure boats as well. While physically larger (and more expensive) that what I use because their fuel flow is much greater, they work and work very well.

Finally, with the advent of Post 4 ECM controlled common rail injection systems, many OEM's are installing them or a similar unit on their engines. Kubota is one, Kubota is using a 10 micron pre filter on all their common rail diesels now, in addition to the normal pre spin on filter and sediment bowl.

 

[Lionsfan]

I combust way more diesel than anything else actually, running 2 large frame farm tractors and a diesel pickup truck and in reality, I've had zero issues with the gummit mandated ULSD diesel fuel (Ultra Low Sulfur Diesel). I read online (of course) horror stories about how it screws up conventional high pressure injection pumps and erodes injector pintles and candidly, I've not experienced any of that. I do add a certified Biocide to my fuel (in my case Powerservice Bio-Kleen) because domestic refiners do add a percentage of bio-diesel to the ULSD at the refinery, I presume to add some lubricity (that ULSD lacks), before they sell it to retailers.

The issue is, Bio-Diesel is notorious for growing algae and having been down the algae road once before, I don't want a repeat performance. Not the algae itself that destroys injection systems, but the exoskeletons that destroy high pressure injection systems like injection pumps and injector pintles (the moving part in a high pressure diesel injector).

I went through that scenario a few years back and it cost me over a grand in parts alone and I did all the grunt work myself. New injectors, new lift pump, new filters, associated piping.. not ever again so to not have that, I added Racor fuel polishing filters between the fuel tanks and the first primary filters. The Racor's will strip out 100% of any contaminants as well as any water and they continuously filter down to 5 microns. Since installing the Racor's, I've had zero issues with fuel and that has been over 2 years ago now. If anyone wants to know the particulars, you can PM me and I'll give you the part numbers for the filter bases as well as the spin on filter part numbers and in reality, installing them is very easy and on the bottom of the spin on filters, each have a clear bowl with a drain so you can easily see what the filters are stripping out of the incoming fuel and drain it off easily.

Have them on my diesel farm tractors as well as my diesel pickup truck and one on my diesel bulk tank (500 gallon) just to make sure that I have no issues ever again. My diesel powered standby genset draws it's fuel directly from my bulk tank and I don't want issues with that either.

I summation, I have no issues with ULSD other than the potential growth of algae which I mitigate now. My tractors are all pre-4 units with conventional (Bosch style) high pressure injection pumps and conventional mechanical injectors as is my pickup truck and so is my standby genset which has a John Deere conventionally injected turbo diesel engine in it.

In reality, the Racor's are a cheap date compared to having to replace injection pumps and injectors and disposing of tainted fuel and cleaning out storage tanks and fuel tanks on equipment.

Marine operators have been Racor filtering units for years now to 'polish' incoming fuel prior to engine mounted filter units. Every big ship that is diesel powered have them as well as diesel powered pleasure boats as well. While physically larger (and more expensive) that what I use because their fuel flow is much greater, they work and work very well.

Finally, with the advent of Post 4 ECM controlled common rail injection systems, many OEM's are installing them or a similar unit on their engines. Kubota is one, Kubota is using a 10 micron pre filter on all their common rail diesels now, in addition to the normal pre spin on filter and sediment bowl.

I'm all about Racor, they make a good Filter housing and good elements. In my experience, in our marine applications, they don't "polish" much of anything. They do filter out particles very well, they're easy to service, and they do a respectable job of separating some, but not all of the water collected in your fuel.

 

[Sidecarflip]

I suspect the term 'polish' came about to describe with they do more than anything else and in my experience first hand, mine are stripping out 99%+ of any entrained water in my diesel fuel or at least I've had zero water or debris issues since installing them. In today's varying fuel market and questionable fuel quality, I believe they are a very good investment. My issue besides water in the fuel is debris in the fuel tanks on the tractors. Kind of like getting sawdust in the fuel tanks on chainsaws. I always take a small brush and clean around the fuel cap and oil cap prior to filling my saws (keep a brush handy in my pocket) but try as I may, I still get some in the tanks and have to change the tank filters anyway. With the tractors and not so much my pickup truck, I get some debris in the tanks when filling them and the Racor's remove all that and deposit that in the clear bowls on the bottom of the filters so I can remove them.

I will say that since installing them on the tractors and my pickup truck, I've not had to change the primary fuel filters even one time and the fuel filters aren't a cheap date by a long shot either so far as my experience is concerned, they are an excellent investment.

Having said that, I don't use Racor branded bases, but generic bases and thanks to standardization, the generic bases I use accept the Racor branded filters no issue and the generic bases I use also have a port on the top of them so I can refill the units after changing the filters which eliminates the tedious bleeding of the injection systems as well.

All good with me so far. After my experience with bad fuel and the cost of remediation and the labor involved, anything is light years better than doing nothing and so far at least, all has been good. My tractors 'sleep' all winter in the barn anyway. I live here in Michigan as well and we all know that Michigan weather is unpredictable, especially in the winter. We just went from 50 ambient to below freezing in one day and that in itself will cause condensation to form in fuel tanks and bulk tanks. I want to mitigate any issues before I have issues if I can.

 

[OM617YOTA]

Hardly any E10 is sold of course.

That's the difference.

 

[huskihl]

Slightly off topic but I'm regularly surprised at the talk of the poor quality of the fuel available in North America. Does that apply to Deisel as well?
I suppose it must be due to refinery standards legislated by govts.?
For many years I never used stabil or similar although I do now. And not many average blokes I know ever use it. I have never seen canned fuel, but it is probably available in the cities.
Hardly any E10 is sold of course.
Some Aussies will probably chime in now with horror stories, maybe I've just been lucky with pump 98 and premium Deisel

Certain areas of the US have all sorts of ethanol free fuel with multiple choices of octane, some areas have one or two gas stations in town with only one octane offering. And there are some small isolated areas that there isn’t much available for ethanol free fuel. Might be politics, I don’t know.

I also believe your 98 octane is different than our 98. The rating system is different. Seems like your 98 is similar to 93 here

 

[huskihl]

I run 32:1.
I was using it my my kx250 then a yz250 before I ran it in saws without issue. A bunch of the local harescramble racers recommended it, they run it in their race bikes because it burns clean.
I've burned a couple gallon's of it now and nothing has blown up or carboned up.

32 is probably fine, as I think most oils are at the ratio, particularly if they burn clean

 

[camel2019]

That's the difference.

Unfortunately here in Canada all pump gas has up to 10% ethanol. If you want ethanol free have to go with aviation gas(their making unleaded now) or race fuel cheapest I have found that was $180 per 5 gallon can.

 

[johnb]

I currently run 50:1 and see a lot of different stuff about 40:1 or 32:1 and a lot of different brands of oil. I run a lot of 2-stroke equipment including, blowers, brush cutters, trimmers, chainsaws, etc. on stihl oil. I have seen a lot of stuff about AMSOIL and have thought of switching to it but I am also confused about mix ratios. Any guidance would help as I am very confused about this topic.

I use motor oil and atf dextron mixed at 40:1 plus a dash of oregano cuz I like the smell.

 

[Bob Hedgecutter]

Slightly off topic but I'm regularly surprised at the talk of the poor quality of the fuel available in North America. Does that apply to Deisel as well?
I suppose it must be due to refinery standards legislated by govts.?
For many years I never used stabil or similar although I do now. And not many average blokes I know ever use it. I have never seen canned fuel, but it is probably available in the cities.
Hardly any E10 is sold of course.
Some Aussies will probably chime in now with horror stories, maybe I've just been lucky with pump 98 and premium Deisel

Maybe they have just taken over from the English?

 

[a. palmer jr.]

I watched Chickaniic a couple of times. She doesn’t know her ass from third base. Of all the chainsaw “celebrities” on the internet, she is the worst. She stirs people up by slamming products. Start using premixed can fuel and you will be surprised at how many of your problems go away.

I never use premix fuel, too expensive for my use. I use good oil and never use ethanol gas except sometimes in my Lawn Boy mower, it'll burn anything!

 

[Breckinridge Elkins]

...I've had zero issues with the gummit mandated ULSD diesel fuel (Ultra Low Sulfur Diesel)....

That's an interesting perspective. When I had a truck with a high pressure Stanadyne pump the common wisdom was to add something to make up for the lost lubrication. I typically used Power Service but I would dump whatever odds and ends bottles of 2T/4T oil, ATF, etc into the 42 gallon tank.

 

[BeatCJ]

At work, we had a lot of problems with soot in our truck fleet. In doing.some.research, I found that the cetane rating in our delivered diesel fuel was below the manufacturer recommended number. Power Service Diesel Clean claimed to boost it to the required level. We started adding it to the bulk tank and all of our problems went away.

I checked, no other supplier could supply fuel with a higher rating. How can manufacturers sell equipment with higher fuel quality requirements than the fuel that is commonly available?

 

[bwalker]

At work, we had a lot of problems with soot in our truck fleet. In doing.some.research, I found that the cetane rating in our delivered diesel fuel was below the manufacturer recommended number. Power Service Diesel Clean claimed to boost it to the required level. We started adding it to the bulk tank and all of our problems went away.

I checked, no other supplier could supply fuel with a higher rating. How can manufacturers sell equipment with higher fuel quality requirements than the fuel that is commonly available?

Thr margins are very high on diesel fuel right now so there is a push to put all the crap we can into diesel. As a result it gets diluted with some high range gasoline streams. This will tend to drive cetane down.

 

[HansFranz]

That's an interesting perspective. When I had a truck with a high pressure Stanadyne pump the common wisdom was to add something to make up for the lost lubrication. I typically used Power Service but I would dump whatever odds and ends bottles of 2T/4T oil, ATF, etc into the 42 gallon tank.

Found a paper here that goes into the loss of lubricity of ULSD and how to fix it with various additives:

https://cdn.intechopen.com/pdfs/38157/InTech-Lubricating_aspects_of_automotive_fuels.pdf

If you look at pages 102-103, you'll see where they show that adding castor oil at a rate of 200 ppm (about 1 tablespoon per 40-gallon tank of ULSD) improves your lubricity a LOT, and more than any other oil they looked at...specifically, it reduces the standardized test "wear scar diameter" (WSD) from 555 μm to 360 μm...and for whatever reason, adding more oil actually decreases lubricity...

 

[lone wolf]

Found a paper here that goes into the loss of lubricity of ULSD and how to fix it with various additives:

https://cdn.intechopen.com/pdfs/38157/InTech-Lubricating_aspects_of_automotive_fuels.pdf

If you look at pages 102-103, you'll see where they show that adding castor oil at a rate of 200 ppm (about 1 tablespoon per 40-gallon tank of ULSD) improves your lubricity a LOT, and more than any other oil they looked at...specifically, it reduces the standardized test "wear scar diameter" (WSD) from 555 μm to 360 μm...

I wonder if added oil will play havoc with the pollution control stuff on newer diesel truck?

 

[AnthemBassMan]

I run either Amsoil Saber or Echo Red Armor mixed 40:1 always with ethanol free 90 octane gas. I use this same mix in my small Echo CS370, my three vintage/antique Lawn-Boy mowers, Husqvarna trimmer, Hitachi leaf blower, and Ariens snowblower. The pics are after running a few gallons of Red Armor in my Husqvarna trimmer. Four years old and some serious hard use. I’ve used it with the pole saw attachment to clear off a long bank of black locust anywhere from a couple inches to forearm diameter, to using the mini cultivator attachment to till up a small 10x12 garden in my backyard. The piston, ring, cylinder is clean with a good coat of oil on them, and the exhaust port had just a hint of carbon powder in the bottom left corner that wiped right off. All carbs on my equipment are tuned to run their best with the mix I use.

L8R,
Matt

 

[HansFranz]

I wonder if added oil will play havoc with the pollution control stuff on newer diesel truck?

Diesels are such pigs to begin with, I find it hard to believe that 200 ppm (a tablespoon in 40 gallons) is going to make any difference.

I use castor oil at that rate in my 2001 Ford 7.3 Powerstroke, but that doesn't really have any pollution controls ... maybe on the more modern diesels, you'll need to change out your blinker fluid more often ...?
¯\_(ツ)_/¯

FWIW, my hunch is that the additives sold by Stanadyne and Lucas are largely castor oil...IIRC, you can smell the castor in them.

 

[OM617YOTA]

If your state has a biodiesel mandate, then lubricity isn't any concern. 5% biodiesel will more than make up for any lubricity lost in the sulfur removal process.

 

[bwalker]

I wonder if added oil will play havoc with the pollution control stuff on newer diesel truck?

If it's not ashless I would think it would.

 

[lone wolf]

If it's not ashless I would think it would.

Aha, got to be careful.