Been reading around on WMO and biodiesel, when I bought my truck it had 100% biodiesel and one of the tanks... Ran okay, my question is I see a lot of people using waste oil for fuel., I have a pretty much unlimited supply of fresh engine oil that has never been ran anywhere from 5w20 to 15w40... Since I see a lot of mixing 50 50, would it still be okay to run this mix?

 

The older diesels generally like a little oil in the fuel. These engines were designed to run on a fuel that is no longer legal to sell in the US.

Engine oil was not designed to burn as fuel. I wouldn't go 50/50. I have run 15% oil mix without issues. And I avoid burning anything with synthetic oil.

Where are you getting all this unused oil? Are you sure it is dry?

 

From our good ol military lol, its in sealed 55 gallon drums. I also have "used" jpa as well, so no more than 15% you think? Thats about 2½ gallons on a fill up

 

How big is your fuel tank? 15% of 30 is 4.5 gallons.

JPA? Do you mean JP8? JP8 with some 2 cycle oil (marine grade, preferably) will run great in these motors. I know an aircraft mechanic who has been running reclaimed JP8 in his truck for years.

 

I have two 19 gallon tanks...yes sorry its jp8

 

You can try the 50/50 mix. I know others do it. The 15% rule is just my personal comfort level.

 

I'll try it @ 15% and experiment from there. I do keep the front tank all diesel though just in case, filter gets changed every other month

 

I have ran as much as 25% with out any problems. A little harder to start. My truck is harder to start than most even on straight diesel. I wish I had a second tank so I could use a higher % of oil in it and one tank for straight diesel during start up and shut down during winter. My biggest issue is finding time to filter the oil. I run it through whole house water filters. Seems to work and haven't had any issues. I have only went through about 20 gallons. I'm new to this and don't do it on every tank. Kinda lazy I guess.

 

Hey thank you for the information now, it's greatly appreciated. I kind of figured I was going to start 15 to 20 percent.. I'm in the process of fixing my front tank..... I think it is the pick up to inside the tank, it wont even run when the tank is full but if I switch it to the back tank it runs just fine, good times lol

 

i started real slow on burning WMO, like a gallon per fill up, but then got brave. i was in the habit of running 60% WMO all the time for a good while, mixing it before filtering, worked great when i could take an hour every night to do it, then life changed and i'm living in an apartment, so i don't have as much time to spend on it. now i get it when i can, usually when working on whatever up at the parents house cause thats where my system is. i've run as strong as 90%, though at that point its a bit slow getting into the engine and i can feel it starving a little bit. also, its a bit challenging to start with a mix above about 60%, though starting and stopping on plain #2 and switching to a stronger mix while driving avoids that concern.
the ONLY serious problem i ran into on WMO was when i had a bit of metallic debris in my oil supply, which got past the filters in tiny particles. it gathered on the fuel shutoff solenoid on the top of the injection pump and fried the solenoid. it took me a couple weeks to be willing to burn oil again after that, but i got over my fears, placed several strong magnets along the bottom of my tanks and on the outside of my filters, and got right back to burning it.
once you get used to the idea of it, its really not anything to worry about

 

Joshofalltrades.... if you worry about small metal shavings collecting on the fuel shutoff solenoid couldn't just be cleaned every so often? Like during an oil change? They don't look that hard to pull off, unless I'm looking at the wrong thing.

Side note with how cold winter has been here, down in the negative temps for highs. I have cut back to a gallon every fill up. I tend to not go bellow a 1/4 before I refuel. Truck seems to not mind it that thin to much but you can smell it burning the oil when it first starts. Till it gets nice and warm.

 

No, pulling the cover off is easy, if slightly messy.

Y'know I'm wondering, though... If the problem is FSS generating magnetism and sticking metal shavings... why not just remove it?
With the FSS entirely removed, the engine will run. Just not shut off. You could kill the engine by pushing the throttle lever past low-idle, though. Which pretty much means making a latching/adjustable low-idle plate instead of the screw, something operated by cable. Move your stop out of the way to kill the engine, move it such that it pushes the throttle back to idle to have your idle.
Could probably do it with a solenoid or two like the high idle one, but it would need a longer throw distance.

 

i've heard of others finding such alternative ways to stop their engines, and it sounds like a reasonable plan. after having to FSS's fail a week apart, i now carry a spare top cover for my IP which has the FSS lever cut off. if i ever have to use it, i'll see about these alternative shutdown methods.
on a related note, they do make a cover that uses a mechanical shutdown, it was found primarily in stationary engines and non-highway vehicles if i remember right, and it would be fairly easy to set up a cable linkage for one of these if someone desired to.

as for cleaning the FSS periodically, the challenge is that it has a permanent magnet included in it, so it'll be challenging to remove all metal debris from it, especially when that metal has snuck its way inside where it can do the real damage.
i haven't had any additional problems since i added strong magnets to the bottom of my fuel tanks and the outside of my filter. any metal that may be present will get trapped by the magnet in one of these places and not get into my pump.

and pulling the top cover of the pump is as easy at it looks, but the concern is that the FSS lever MUST be in the correct position when the cover is reinstalled or else you'll have a runaway engine on your hands. everyone i've read says it must be energized when you're installing it, but my experience suggests that it can be installed properly by placing the top of the pump in place about 1/4" forward of its proper position, then sliding it back to where it belongs and installing the screws.

 

Not to stray to far from the OP's topic but I feel we have raised some very good points when using WMO etc. You can never be to safe and I like the magnet idea to catch stray metal particles.

Josh what type of magnet did you use. I know Neodymium are strong and aren't to badly priced on Amazon yet they are mostly smaller magnets. I am thinking about getting some and running the used oil over them to collect any possible metal shavings.

On a side note I do like the idea of the mechanical shutdown. Could be used for safety and I wonder if you could incorporate a fast idle with it. It would help warm these engines up during the cold days.

 

Yup; works fine. Just got to take a look at the lever and see where it should be compared to the springed-slidey-thing in the top of the pump, such that when the lever is pulled 'on' it doesn't interfere, and when it is off, it pushes against said slidey-thing. Easier done than said.