I have seen a lot lately about guys who add a quart of ATF to their fuel to keep the injectors lubricated. It's supposed to extend injector life especially in areas where only low sulfur diesel is available. If ya know, ya know.

I have replaced/upgraded my injectors to hybrid FF 205/30 and have about 15K miles on the new ones (330K totally on the motor). Is it still a good idea with aftermarket injectors to add ATF to the fuel for added lubrication? Will it help with longevity or efficiency? I have quite a bit of ATF sitting around and was trying to figure out what to do with it anyway.

 

I use ATF and motor oil in mine

 

Do you have aftermarket injectors. I know on the stock engines this is fine but mine has an upgraded electric high pressure fuel pump and hybrid injectors. I don't want to gum anything up.

 

I run stock injectors and pump

 

You won’t hurt anything with ATF. The publicity of the additive is not affected by the style of injector. There are several differing opinions on which additive to use. ATF, two cycle oil, dieselklean and the list goes on. Do a little research on the topic and and decide what works best for you.

 

Good to know. From what I can find, most guys use ATF or filtered used oil (not a fan). Two cycle would be great as it is already meant to mix with fuel and made for lubrication. I have read about other additives even adding Lucas oil straight in but the most common seems to be ATF. The one constant is that it doesn't really change viscosity as drastically with temp. It also supposedly prevents the fuel from gelling.

 

I prefer B99, guess ATF could work but **** is about $20/gal now here.

 

ATF does some nice cleaning
Cleared up my injectors some and fuel bowl is cleaner inside. I just changed it last weekend since the seal leaked

 

How much ATF to you add per gallon of fuel?

 

I've tried the filtered used motor oil and not a fan either.

As far as using ATF or new motor oil, lets think about this....Why? Diesel is already crazy expensive, why go out and buy expensive oil/ ATF to add in.

Stock injectors or even upgraded/ aftermarket injectors last an extremely long time. The cost of whatever additive used would pay for new injectors; only to find out it didn't increase the lifespan of your injectors.

 

Why would you take advice from some guy who probably heard from a friend that this was a smart thing to do? The engine manufacturer's recommendations are based on actual testing and measurements and not some seat of the pants guesses.

The problem with the short life of injector solenoids with diesel engines are the result of increasing fuel rail pressures (increase of up to 50% in past 20 years) and how very dirty diesel fuel is, even in the USA (much cleaner than what is burned in Europe). Even when a fuel filter removes 98.7 percent of the particles in a gallon of diesel fuel that leaves 240,000 particles still hitting the solenoids at very high speed with every gallon burned.

Want to increase the life of the injectors then add a second fuel filter upstream to increase filtration. By adding it upstream the existing fuel filter does not need to be as effective and if it is changed less often it will do a better job of removing particles from the fuel. What few people realize is that filters, for air and fuel, are least effective when new and before any loading of the filter media has occurred.

 

I dumped in a gallon when I had half a tank.
Cleaned up a miss I had around 1k-1500 RPM

Since i have a lot of random quarts of oil, this has been a great way to recycle with benefits

 

One thing to burn oil through the fuel system with a very old truck with no smog emissions controls but with a modern truck the lubricant will gum up the DPF and possible damage the catalytic converter and reduce fuel flow through the fuel filter. It is by no means "recycling" to burn the oil with the engine.

 

All great comments but I would like to address a few things.

First off, I have 4 gallons of new ATF sitting in my garage that will not get used otherwise. I was thinking this was a good way to get rid of it. I don't think it will be an ongoing additive at least not with hard regularity.

Second, I fully agree with adding a secondary fuel filtration system. I have added an electric high volume pump with a two filter system. With the diesel today, you can't be too careful.

Lastly, our trucks (mid to late 90s) were intended to be run on low sulfur diesel. The new fuels out there are ultra low sulfur which means less lubrication. Many areas of California only have bio diesel mixtures with can be harmful to older diesel engines. They claim to be "green" and cause lower fuel consumption but I have found that they actually cause worse fuel mileage for my truck and it also seems to run a bit more rough. I've been told by diesel mechanics that our older trucks were never meant to run these new types of fuels. Adding ATF or other lubricants to the fuel will extend injector and overall engine life.

My intent for this post was to see if others are seeing the same things or running ATF or similar additives with newer hybrid injectors. I am filling up my tanks this weekend to tow the 5th wheel out to the coast. I will be adding 1qt of ATF into each tank and report back on my findings.

 

Winter2

I did not reply to you

You are preaching about new trucks in a old truck forum?