Here it is the end of December already. Today I got caught by my own lack of maintenance and forethought. If you plug your PSD in overnight and it goes down below zero and you have gelled fuel, your PSD starts and runs fine until you idle out of the neighborhood into a busy street and put your foot into it. That causes the gelled fuel to try to get into the fuel line from the tank all at once and clogs it up in a hurry! It started shaking like it was running on 4 cylinders, then two cylinders, then none at all. I was at a left turn signal not 1/2 mile from my house. Streets covered with snow so I couldn't really push it out of the way. I had to call a tow truck! $40 for 1/2 mile tow, but my Honda Civic couldn't have done it so I was out of choices. My little 15hp 4WD Kubota tractor could have done it easily but I might have been arrested driving that thing through that busy intersection.

Left it sitting in the driveway for several hours (unplugged) until the sun warmed us up to 36 degrees and it started and purred like a tiger like it always does.

Lessons That I Should Have Learned By Now:

Change fuel filter before the start of winter, no matter what.

Use fuel supplement for the entire winter. A 44 gallon tank can last a month and it just might get down below zero in that month. You never know. I might as well be safe and always put it in the fuel. We went on vacation several weeks ago so some of that fuel was from the middle of November. I wasn't yet in winter mode in November.

 

When living in Michigan I never used an additive and never had a gelling problem ( and yes we had below 0 temps ) . Maybe it's your fuel supplier and not you that is not ready for winter !

 

Well, be fair to his fuel supplier - if he has a large tank and runs through it slowly, it's possible to get pre-winter blend fuel and still be running it when the cold temps hit. (I think that's what he was saying he thinks happened.)

Same deal when someone fills their large tank in a southern area and drives north for the holidays - d'oh! Always top off when you hit the colder areas.

Duncan

 

I'm in the southeast.We had our first cold spell the other day.It only got down to 26.Wellthe same thing happened to me.I have to blame mine on the supplier.I switched tanks and the problem went away.

 

You got a chuckle out of me on that one. Merry Christmas.

 

I was one step ahead, put additive in last night and filled up both tanks. Truck smoked like crazy this morning i'm guessing because it was so cold since it never smoked that much before, it was interesting

 

I have the same problem with cold weather, so I let mine warmup for at least 10 minutes which helps tremendously. My truck has a certain rpm range that it seems to bog down at around 1000 rpms. Once past that point it runs well. It continues to bog down around this RPM range for a while. Anyone ever experience this stange phenomenon?

 

That's way too low of an RPM to be trying to apply power.

 

What kind of fuel additive do you guys recommend/use?
I rarely see the temp drop to single digits or less, but the teens are common.

 

I use power service Diesel Fuel Supplement +Cetane Boost in the winter. And Diesel Kleen in the summer. They are both made by the same company (Power Service). The winter formula is the white bottle and the summer formula is the grey bottle. I buy mine at wal-mart for about $4.50 for a 32oz bottle.
Mike