Damaging effects of running garbage fuels

[Dsl_Dog_Treat]

There are many of us who run alternative fuels to offset costs these days. What we feel as a justified sacrifice has an adverse reaction.
Mel has said before that those who run garbage fuels are damaging injection pumps to where there are no longer serviceable and nothing more than mere scrap metal. This is even starting to be seen with long term "barn stored" IP's that are showing significant signs of deterioration as well.

Prime example. An IP that I had stored for over 2 years, with low mileage use on it, clean internals and soaked for 24 hrs with Stanadyne injector cleaner failed to operate properly. So for show and tell purposes here's an IP that has run who knows what thru it. The filter screen is on the right and completely clogged. As Mel and I had talked recently about my stored IP issues, he shared this photo with me this morning as to what he received as a perceivable core.

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[riotwarrior]

Freakin wow...that's a whole lotta nasty goin on there...

Seriously that's gross!

Is there a way to inspect that part on our own? I am curious about seeing in there on my stuff....

Just Sayin...

Al

 

[Coyote_Red]

I can't see the pictures because my work block all the really cool things, but it sounds bad. I do have a question though, is the pump being ruined by the kind of waste fuel used or is it more of a poor filtration and purification issue?

 

[GOOSE]

What the heck is that, diesel mixed with regurgitated hampster food? No wonder I stick to my guns and bite the bullet at the pump.

 

[jaluhn83]

I can't see the pictures because my work block all the really cool things, but it sounds bad. I do have a question though, is the pump being ruined by the kind of waste fuel used or is it more of a poor filtration and purification issue?

I would guess both, probably bad fuel with water causing rust issues and then no or poor filtering.

Bad enough fuel will each holes through the filter media. This is especially true with WVO as you can get acids in the oil if it had water in it. Learned this one the hard way.

Any alternate fuel other than true biodiesel (made by chemical reaction of veggie oil) is going to be ******* the injection pump no matter what you do. Even new veggie oil is much thicker than diesel and this causes changes in the dynamic timing and makes the pump work harder. Yes, perheating helps some, but it's still suboptimal. WVO and WMO have that problem plus contaminates in the fuel.

Basically anyone running alternate fuels should consider the cost of a complete fuel system replacement every 5-10k miles as part of the fuel cost. Then see how much cheaper it is......

 

[DragRag]

Simple math guys. If I save $1000 a month running garbage fuel, I save $12000 a year. I could buy another engine, or trucks, or whatever I want every 6 months with that kind of saving. Running pump diesel is not a good option when considering the savings regardless of potential damage.

 

[jaluhn83]

You drive 45,000 miles a year????

I come up with a fuel cost of ~$307 / 1000 miles (assuming $4/gal and 13 mpg) so yes you would save enough $$$ to pay for a pump and injectors every ~3k miles.

This assumes, however that you can get junk fuel for free with no other overhead and neglects the time spend in fuel prep and truck repair.

Assuming you figure in all these factors, it is probably cheaper in pure $$, but you also have to factor in how much your time and the headache factor is worth.

If you figure all these things in and still come out ahead, then well and good all the more power to you. However, many people don't factor it all in and think they're going to get something for nothing... that's what the thread is about.

 

[junk]

That screams that someone's not running a filter. Garbage fuel or not I wouldn't expect to see stuff like that in the IP.

 

[icanfixall]

Ron and I had talked about this very same item a week ago. I felt this was a problem being a plugged screen too.. But I had no idea the pump had been running waste fuel of some kind. Ron had fuel all the way to the actual injection end of the pump but none much farther thru the pump. It ran but very poorly. Now we know why.. Good find Ron and Mel.. Now asking the question how this stuff got past the filter really should be examined closely. Could have been from many miles of use. Then corrosion started from the long layoff on the shelf.. Many questions needs to be answered. Personally I have never run anything but what comes out of the pump. When I got my truck back in 95 or 6 I had the fram oil and fuel filter on it. About 3 months later I saw the filter lite barely come on. It was under harder than normal ecelleration. So I changed it. No more issues I continued useing the fram till I learaned better. My rig had 32,000 miles on it when I got it. May have been 132,000 miles but I sure could not prove it had more than 32,000 miles on it... Nothing was worn out anywhere. Even had new paint cause ford sent these trucks out with poor quality paint. Now my factory paint is worn down... No more shine...
Will I ever run an alternate fuel... Probably not. I'm all in for saving money but at what cost. A full tank lasts me more than a month. I regret not driving it more. I really work hard "finding a reason" to drive it...

 

[pwjackson]

That screams that someone's not running a filter. Garbage fuel or not I wouldn't expect to see stuff like that in the IP.

Exactly if our stock fuel filter is 10 micron and you filter your WMO down to 10 and 5 micron then how would you get that kind of build up in the IP? I have read on here where people have filtered down to 5 micron and ran on the same fuel system for 30,000 miles with no problems or loss in performance. Now if you are not filtering water out or just dumping waste oils into your tank without filtering I can see this happening pretty easy. As for me, I say if I get 30,000 miles on a set of injectors, lift pump and IP then I have more than saved my moneys worth by running WMO mixed with RUG or Diesel.

I have about $580.00 in a completely rebuilt fuel system (IP, injectors, lift pump), doesn't take long to make that up when you can make diesel fuel for around $.50 a gal.

Now, I do not run high performance stuff like you would get from Mel just for that reason, if that were the case then yes I would stick to straigh diesel.

Just my .02 on the topic.

 

[diezelcrazee]

That looks like it is mostly rust. Can't put water through an IP....

 

[Brad S.]

In my early days of running wmo, had some that I didn't filter good enough.
The fuel filter caught all the stuff, mine ended up being very fine wind blown dirt/silt/sand etc.

On the lighter side that almost looks close to what left in my coffee maker the next morning.(Damn fillers)

 

[argve]

Yep as said before this is a lesson in cost analysis. You have to figure that running alternative fuels will degrade or shorten the life but then need to look at the cost savings while figuring in the added parts, labor and headache of replacing said items. That being said I ran alt fuels because I figured up years ago that I was money ahead but I vaguely remember that I needed to run something in the neighborhood of like 100 gallons a month - it's been a while but for some reason that number sticks in my mind. (it's been a few years)....

 

[sassyrel]

Yep as said before this is a lesson in cost analysis. You have to figure that running alternative fuels will degrade or shorten the life but then need to look at the cost savings while figuring in the added parts, labor and headache of replacing said items. That being said I ran alt fuels because I figured up years ago that I was money ahead but I vaguely remember that I needed to run something in the neighborhood of like 100 gallons a month - it's been a while but for some reason that number sticks in my mind. (it's been a few years)....

and i distinctly remember,,being laughed at,,at a certain idi weekend...........................

 

[bagpiperjosh]

yea, i'm sorry but i dont believe that is due to someone running properly filtered wmo. That looks like many years of neglect on many different levels.

My truck runs great on a 75%wmo mix and doesn't smoke at all.