Since I am dealing with what seems to be a dead injector in my 04 6.0, this piece of information is timely. I have been running B50 for 7000 miles. I'm at 130K now.
Any comments on this statement from Ford's new document on FICM's? I am interested in how biodiesel creates more sludge buildup over petro diesel. Haven't heard of this before.

"Higher than specified amounts of Bio-diesel fuel has
been found to cause multiple injector failures. These
multiple failures can tend to make a technician
believe that the FICM is malfunctioning.
• In these cases, the FICM is working as intended, but
movement of the spool in the upper portion of the
injector is limited due to sludge build-up on the ends
of the spool.
• This type of failure is not a defect in the product but
rather a result of an unauthorized amount of
Bio-diesel fuel being used."

14

 

interesting. subscribing...

 

Logic check:

If I'm reading this right, this is a cop-out from Ford.

Fuel never touches the spool valve. Only oil. That would indicate either poor oil quality, or improperly extended oil change intervals.

Nothing whatsoever to do with fuel.

I think Ford is trying to point the finger of blame at the folks who are running WVO (even filtered), or VO, or anything other than 100% petro fuel. Despite the fact that there is a significant difference between straight WVO, and fuel bought at a Pilot Truck Stop, that has a B10 sticker on the pump.

-blaine

 

I was wondering when someone was going to read this and scream LIES LIES LIES. I've been thinking about it since it came out and had this discussion with someone last night.

Anyone who knows about the operation of a 6.0 injector knows that the fuel NEVER touches the spool valve and a simple mixture of B2 is perhaps the best lubricant for a HEUI injector in the FUEL portion of the injector.

 

When I read it, I thought "HUH!?!?!" I had to go back and read it again to make sure I'd read it correctly.

Nice to know I'm not smoking anything (other than diesel fumes) this morning.

-blaine

 

Thanks for the info guys. It sounded odd to me, but I don't know how the engines work (yet, I'm working on it). Thus, I was waiting for someone to come along who knew. I can't rep Blaine until I spread more love, so they're all yours npccpartsman.

 

I'll rep him for ya if I can Juneau and thanks back to ya.

 

I just spent 30 minutes looking over the injector operating modes, found in the various PDF files presented in the 6.0 forum. I can't for the life of me figure out how they put 2 and 2 together and come up with 3. The amount of failures required to get fuel past the intensifier piston, and into the spool valve, would essentially mean the injector has exploded into about six different pieces -- at least one of which would probably not be attached to the motor any more.

I'd like to see an injector that failed legitimately from Bio, and not some other cause.

There ARE some tiny parts of the injector assembly where poorly filtered Bio MIGHT cause problems, but they're FAR away from the spool valve.

And if that kind of crud got into the injectors, I'd have to say that the user would have to be pouring both the WVO, AND the french fries, into the tank, to have them get crud like that past the filters. Or perhaps they were not using the factory fuel filtering system.

-blaine

 

I just spent 30 minutes looking over the injector operating modes, found in the various PDF files presented in the 6.0 forum. I can't for the life of me figure out how they put 2 and 2 together and come up with 3. The amount of failures required to get fuel past the intensifier piston, and into the spool valve, would essentially mean the injector has exploded into about six different pieces -- at least one of which would probably not be attached to the motor any more.

I'd like to see an injector that failed legitimately from Bio, and not some other cause.

There ARE some tiny parts of the injector assembly where poorly filtered Bio MIGHT cause problems, but they're FAR away from the spool valve.

And if that kind of crud got into the injectors, I'd have to say that the user would have to be pouring both the WVO, AND the french fries, into the tank, to have them get crud like that past the filters. Or perhaps they were not using the factory fuel filtering system.

-blaine

(thx for the reps, btw. )

 

Got to thinking about this last night. Normally, fuel (or even it's residue) will never touch the spool valve. However......

IF certain conditions are met, you COULD get fuel residue into the spool valve. What are those conditions?

Extended use of POOR Quality biodiesel (i.e. unfiltered or minimally filtered WVO, SVO, etc) -- extended use being in the 50-100K mile range; several YEARS of use of this kind of fuel, and more than likely bypassing or removing the factory fuel filtering system

combined with

extended idle times (several hours/day)

combined with

drastically extended oil change intervals (15-20K miles between changes)

MIGHT POSSIBLY allow some combustion byproducts (or even raw fuel) to get into the oil system and thus in to the spool valves.

But all of these coming together would HAVE to be the result of completely ignoring all established service intervals for the 6.0, as well as even a tiny amout of common sense.

Which puts it into the same "pay to play" category as running poor quality tunes/tuners on the 6.0.

-blaine

 

I too read that report, doesn't make sense to me. Bio has great solvent properties and that being the case, one would have to assume that the injectors would be clean, clean, clean. I have 12,000 miles running bio on my 04 F-250 and it runs great, only slight problem starting in the morning as I have to key it twice. On second turn of the key it starts instantly, not a bad thing for the money that I am saving.
Dave