Hey guys... I've been doing this for years... if you get cold weather like I do you might try this for gelled fuel....EG... if the truck wont start and you dont have enough antigel in the tanks... you can change filters and such all day long and it wont do a thing for the waxed fuel in your tank. Wax forming in the tank has a bad tendancy to plug the pickup tube in our fords... an easy fix is slap on a magnetic oil pan heater ( available from Napa etc ), to the side of your fuel tank.. A 200 watt magnetic heater will heat the fuel in a 19 gal tank from -20 outside temps, if you put the truck inside, in about 10 hours , to a temp of between 70 and 75 degrees... which will reliquify any waxed fuel in your tank and the pickup tube...it doesnt take much wax to stop your lift pump from picking up good fuel.

To isolate whether or not the filter is waxed or gelled... take the cap off and look....with the key on for a few min.. stick your finger in the fuel... if it's warm... you will have no wax buildup on the filter... then pull some fuel from the filter bowl and have someone spin the engine over... if the bowl fills back up rapidly... you dont have a gell / wax issue in the pre pump system... if not... yer tank and pickup tube likely has some waxing issues... push it inside and put a magnetic heater low on the side of the tank. You can leave it inside and it will eventually re liquify without the heater but.. it might take two or three days... with the heater... about 10 hours to fully heat the fuel.... then dump some anti gel in and run the truck to circulate the fuel for an hour or more.

 

Good tip! I don,t seem to have a problem like that seems there is enough anti gel or conditioner in the winter fuel around here.

I used to put stanadyne in the tank regularly so I would not run into this problem but I can smell the additive in the fuel at the pump and it seems to do the trick I even have my fuel heater unplugged at -28c no freezing

 

Gawd... you live in about as cold a part of the country in the winter as I do.... I know there are some unfortunate souls on here that live in a part of the country that doesnt see extreme cold temps as the norm... untill this past week anyhow and not every fuel retailer puts antigel on or uses a number 1 blend unless they have to... adds costs to their fuel. We haven't seen above 5 degrees on the ole thermometer since the first week of Dec...until today it hasnt been above 0 at all for the past two weeks solid. One of our guys, the last time he filled his personal truck up was back in October at a retail pump in town pre cold weather blend time... he thought he'd tool on down to his girlfriends place the other day... he made it about halfway out of the canyon when she started to puke... he got halfway turned around in the road and she died right there....I towed it back to my shop and pulled the fuel filter... he had had the key on so he could steer it while towing and the fuel in the bowl was probably near 100 degrees... I drained the bowl and turned the key back on and spun the motor... no fuel coming in the bowl at all.... WAXED / GELLED tank.... slapped the ole magnetic heater on the side of the tank near the bottom, plugged it in and went in the house... next morning.. hit the key.. it spun a few times and fired right up... dumped about a quart of powerservice in the tank and let her idle in the shop for about an hour, then called him and he went on his way.. no more problems... but if you dont let em idle for awhile, it will never mix the antigel with the fuel.. it will just float on top of the fuel. never do anything. At an idle the fuel pump returns more fuel to the tank than the engine uses, so it will mix pretty good if you give it a little while

 

LOL yeah we have had nothing but cold too I think everyone is feeling it across north america a friend of mine was in vagas last week and said it was snowing LOL.