Been doing it for 2 years I would say 40000 to 50000 another guy did it for 5 years before he sold his truck never had a problem

 

Sounds good! Does it smoke much? You run it year round or just in the summer time?

 

No smoke till u get the ratio close to 75 25 I run it year round

 

to the OP Id do what these guys recommend because I have no useable knowledge on the subject

And now to comment aimlessly like my goal originally was.

I wonder if we could compile a list of all the sorts of stuff/mixtures people have run in these engines safely? Key word being safely... we could also have a section of 'risky bizzness' if we so like.

Or is there a list out there?

I just think itd be nice to know what sort of stuff to ****** up that I could run in my truck when I get offered random stuff..

sorry to muck..

 

See, thats where we gotta be careful.
Most guys will tell you to NEVER run UMO or used ATF if your tank.

But obviously me and Rodney are doing so.

Some of these can really screw up your injectors.


The only non store bought additives to run that are worth your money are Bio Diesel and 2cycle oil.

 

Right now I have a mixture of diesel, used motor oil and used ATF in my tanks, and because I type with 2 fingers I'll just post a link to an old thread rather that type it all over again.

Hydraulic alternative - Diesel Forum - TheDieselStop.com

 

I also burn used ATF when I have it ...4 litres or so per tank ( 100 litres )..A couple of years ago I also got some free Jet fuel.... So, I added Power Service in the grey bottle and mixed it 50 / 50 with Diesel....never had a problem ...

 

Call me paranoid, but I'm always wary of putting red liquids into the fuel tank of any truck I will be using on roads.

 

All good info indeed! Thanks for that link bluemule.
Much appreciated.

Go ahead n run your jet fuel man!

 

Okay, Paranoid.

Sorry, I couldn't resist.

I have experimented with running some different stuff in my truck as well. In fact I have a filtering setup in my shop that I use to filter WMO, WHO, etc. I used quite a bit of the stuff last summer before swapping engines, but ran into a problem with the engine smoking badly regardless of what I ran in it. I suspected fouled injectors and I was correct. When I pulled the injectors after swapping engines the nozzles were pretty badly fouled and had carbon build up on them pretty bad. I had experimented with several different things and I think I know where I went wrong, but I haven't had the courage to try again on the new motor yet. I probably should, since I have close to 500 gallons of stuff I could run if I decided to, and I plan to do stage 1's in the future, but so far I just haven't been able to bring myself to do it.

Most of what I have is a mixture of WHO (Waste Hydraulic Oil) and WMO (Waste Motor Oil). I experimented with everything from running it at about 25% (with B20) to Running it as W85 (85% oil, 25% RUG - regular unleaded gasoline). The engine ran just fine on any of the combinations, but smoke was an issue and as I said I had an issue with carbon building up on the nozzles, which I am sure contributed to my smoke issue. The truck seemed to run really well, with even more power and quicker spool up on a 50/50 mix of diesel and WHO. I suppose I should run a little of it in there at a time just because, but so far I haven't run anything but pump fuel in the new (to me) engine.

A lot of my problem I think was that I was using B20 for my blending. Anyone who has experimented with blended fuels will tell you to be very careful not to combine WVO (Waste Veggie Oil) and WMO because it will make a nasty polymer that will clog up your fuel system. What I discovered is that for some reason, when I combined my WHO with B20 it would produce some sort of fine grit that would precipitate out of it and settle to the bottom of my test "beakers". I initially discovered this because I was clogging my fuel filters on my blended fuel. Once I replaced a couple and saw the gray stuff in the bottom of the fuel bowl, I started experimenting with different blends and testing for the precipitate and viscosity. What I found is that I only got the junk to precipitate out of the blend when I used B20. Regular D2 or even gasoline (which is supposed to help any junk to separate out of the fuel and settle to the bottom of the mix) would not produce any sort of separation. My conclusion was that the stuff that I was getting to settle out of the blend was not trapped dirt or impurities in the blend (again this was after filtering to 5 microns) but was a polymer of some kind that was produced by combining the Bio diesel (B20) and the WHO. I have had a couple tests of D2 and WHO sitting on my bench for about 8 months now and I have nothing, I mean ZERO that has settled out of it.

Again, I should probably run it again, but I just haven't brought myself to do so yet. Really if this sort of thing is what you want to do an IDI is much better suited to the job since the injectors are cheap and the precups allow the fuel to be heated and atomize before ignition. I am not saying it can't be done in a PSD, just that you have to be a lot more careful what you run and how you process it. A couple gallons a tank wouldn't hurt though I would imagine, so long as you are filtering it adequately enough. There is one tuner that has even developed a W85 tune that supposedly helps significantly with the smoke.

I am not going to give a glowing review to blending or burning alternative fuels in your PSD. It isn't the answer to the world's energy problems, and it won't solve world peace, or fold your socks for you, but it can be done. It will run (rather well in fact) and as long as you're okay with the possibility of ruining your injectors, experiment away. I am kinda 50/50 on the issue myself, having tried it with some success and having seen the benefits and the perils of it. I did it because I was curious and I though, heck with 390,000 + miles on the engine, why not give it a shot!? I did, and I am glad to share my results. The problem is that it is mostly a bunch of crackpots and tinkerers (of which I am both) that are making these speculations and performing these experiments. Some have had great success, others not so much. There are just a lot of variables to take into account and testing for some of them is difficult. I did it as an experiment and it works. Kinda....

See the carbon build up that is around the holes in the nozzles!? That doesn't do much for getting a good clean atomization!





I don't think running Jet A or kerosene will do this but I would emphasize not to just dump anything in and go without doing some testing first. Granted these injectors had unknown mileage on them (the engine had 392k on it) and some of this may have been there before, but it was smoking like it wasn't spraying well even when I ran it on D2 after running W85 and these mixes in it for while. Just sue caution.

Of course at some point, I suppose you save enough on fuel to pay for injectors...

 

Thats what I understand happens from running used ATF.
Carboned up injectors due to the chemicals not burning.

Great info Nate

 

I feel as if every other post from Nate deserves repping! lol
very good info.


Now if you guys want to continue explaining to us noobs.
What do you do to filter WHO and WMO or dirty ATF to "5 microns" to then mix with your diesel?

Cuz ive got a combination of these two things going on in my head:


I guess I am relating filtering and mixing your own diesel blend to Brewing your own beer. I myself brew beer and am getting into wine/mead.

I am just curious what sort of equipment this requires.. Or what type of setups yall have.

Thanks for entertaining my curiousity!

 

My filtering setup is pretty basic. I have 2 225 gallon totes stacked, one on top of the other. I pump the dirty oil into the top one then let it gravity feed through the filters to the bottom one. I use 2 whole house filter vessels (water filters) to do my filtering, with filter elements that I have bought from Grainger. They are absolute (not nominal) rated filters, the first one at 20 microns (I think, it has been a while since i have messed with them) and the second one is a 5 micron absolute filter. The gravity feed allows me to just pump it up there and turn on the valve, and walk away. It takes a LONG time to filter that much oil by gravity (I think it took a week or better to run 175 gallons or so of the stuff through) but I am in no hurry and the since I didn't have to keep an eye on it, what do I care how long it takes!?

From the bottom tote, you can dispense the stuff for use but it is a bit of a pain since it is sitting right on the floor in my shop. I ended up dispensing it through a hose into jugs then dumping the jugs into the tank of the truck. The main reason I put the system together is to run the oil through my shop heater, but that is a project I haven't gotten to as of yet either. I came across the oil for free and jumped on the opportunity to get it while I could. I keep getting it 5, 10 or 30 gallons at a time from people I know too. In fact I am picking up about 35 gallons of WMO from a friend tomorrow afternoon. Whether this stuff ever makes it into the tank of the truck I don't know though. I may just use it for running the shop heater, who knows.

Here is some light reading for those who are itching to pull the trigger and just start dumping crap into their tanks.

bad experiences ? - Diesel Forum - TheDieselStop.com

Like I said, I like to experiment with this stuff when I have the time to do so, but if you're going to try this, you need to be prepared for the good with the bad. It isn't the quick, easy, free fuel process that people say it is. Especially the W85 stuff. Seems too good to be true, and it usually is. The W85 stuff was really being pushed by the Jeffrey Brooks guy on that site. Seems he has been banned from the site, although I am not sure why. Lots of guys on there tinkering with the stuff, but nobody really has any scientific proof of what works and what doesn't. Just kind of try this, and if it doesn't work, try this, and then this.... It is all just a bunch of theoretical pondering and discussion. Would I try this again in my truck, maybe. Would I try it in a newer, lower mileage truck, probably not.

Like I said, at some point the money you have saved probably is enough to pay for some repairs if you ended up needing them, but at what point do you break even? What do you figure your time is worth?

One thing it seems all these guys agree on is that coking is an issue when they run these high concentrations of waste oil in their trucks. WATF, maybe not I don't know, but do you really want to put all that trash in your engine? They speculate that water injection may help. They say that the tunes from DPTuner help with the smoke but they're achieveing this by bumping the injection timing, which is a slippery slope and is a risky thing to do in a diesel.

There is a lot of speculation, a ton of discussion, but very little hard evidence that says yes or no this does or doesn't work for long term use and what it will do to your engine. It seems like risky business, but I would imagine that the lower the concentration you're running the less risky it would be.

 

This post pretty well sums it up in my opinion:

Quote:
Originally Posted by Jeffrey S Brooks View Post
As posted under "WVO and WMO fuel incompatibilities," I found my coked up injectors were cleared after driving 100 miles on the highway on a blend of 80% WVO and 20% turpentine. Maybe the turpentine had something to do with burring off the coke on my injectors, but I think it was just the 100 miles of driving at highway speeds on a fuel other than a WMO-blend.
Have you ever thought that this concoction cleared the coking because of 0% gasoline?
the slower flame propagation of gasoline retards the timing, thats why in gasoline engines they require approx 30 degrees BTDC timing.
High compression/High octane engines [ eg: my own 16.5: 1 Chevy needed 40 degrees advance using Race gas ]

The only blend I would reccomend in a Diesel engine is 50/ 50 [ that is 50% Diesel blended with another 50% diesel ] any thing else is a compromise that requires some sort of sacrifice [and risk]
Recommending to people to "add more gasoline" isn't the answer, in fact no diesel mechanic would say that because of liability issues.

Gasoline is only a cheap Solvent / thinner which helps the filter and pumps work correctly [ish] It is what is going on in the combustion chamber that is causing the problems now, very few blenders here are having filter issues now
Coking [ and Smoking ] is incomplete combustion caused by too low combustion temps. Some of the causes are Too far retarded and not enough Oxygen.
Adding too much gasoline retards the chemical properties of the blend [ flame propagation ] Pumping more air in with the turbo really helps but this solution also has it's issues
The turbo requires heat to force feed air, and this requires fuel / combustion also [ diesel turbo boost can be controlled by the fuel pump as well as the wastegate ]
Most blenders don't have any problem when the first try blending because they still have half a tank of diesel in their trucks, when we all get more confidant with blending our ratios go up to around 80-85% but the D2 content goes down to Zero
In my present situation, I am running 2 vehicles on W90 blended fuel [as my only fuel source ] This requires another ingredient to be added to the mix. It's called maintenance [ this is the price I pay for being cheap ]

 

Thanks Nate!

Id sure love to meet n see that shop of yours someday.... Sounds epic!

What I was thinking of doing was only running a 80/20 blend... very minor... Or running one tank 50/50 of some mixture and then running the good offroad stuff in the other to help 'clean it out!'

I dont know how much truth there is to this, but a friend told me that 'off road' diesel that they use in bobcats and farmers can use... supposedly burns hotter and cleaner and is better for your engine. I figured I'd run a 'gunk' tank followed by an EPICLY AWESOME tank.

Of course I wouldnt be running that good tank on the road...