First Diesel, Where to Begin

[snicklas]

I would say, if the diesel is red in the filter, it is off-road (non-taxed) diesel. It will run fine with it, just the hit your wallet hard if you get dipped. Here in Indiana, if you are found running red diesel in an on-road vehicle, it's a $10,000 fine........

I have a jug of red diesel that I have been using in my shop heater, and it looks like red kool-aid with the dye that's in it.

 

[Oelmensch]

...it looks like red kool-aid with the dye that's in it.

Yup, that is about how I would describe it. Guess I'll be draining my tanks, I don't know what the fine in Oregon is, but I definitely don't have $10k in throw-away money for fines. On the bright side, I'd like to drop the tanks anyways and make sure the senders are intact and check for leaks, so I'd have to drain them anyways.

 

[MtnHaul]

I would make sure your coolant is properly charged with SCA.

 

[JLtoolman]

I think the $10,000 fine is pretty universal. I have been checked here in NC, at a flea market, of all places.

Draining and cleaning your tanks will save you grief later on.

 

[Oelmensch]

It's Alive!

Well, everything is back together, gauges have been repaired and fuel system purged of any trapped air from the filter change or opening the injector lines during the glow plugs/comp-testing. Also, I checked the replacement tach sensor before I installed it, ~2.4k Ohm reading IIRC where the previous (bad) one was showing as an open circuit.

After clearing the arachnids that setup shop in the cab (4 in just a couple days, that time of year...) it fired right up and immediately saw that both the EGT gauge and the tach were working, high idle also appeared to work since I reconnected the sensor. Zipped to the gas station (only had a couple gallons of street-diesel to fill with after draining the tanks (which I have ~12 gallons of kool aid diesel to sort out) and didn't want to run it dry and be stranded after idling a couple minutes to get things up to temp.

Once on the highway, HUGE SUCCESS! 55mph is a bit shy of 2k rpm per the tach, but most importantly it was holding top gear without hunting between gears anymore; tach sensor definitely seems to have fixed that one so it'll stay an automatic unless I have reason to suspect the reliability of things. Boost gauge works, seemed to cruise 55-60 mph at 1-2 psi (hard to be certain since it isn't mounted (just laid on the dash at an awkward angle) and heavy throttle up an on-ramp showed ~7-8 psi. EGT gauge showed ~300 at idle and saw a high of 650 at WOT on the on-ramp with boost. The 088 ATS unit looks like it has the EGT sensor after the turbine on the downpipe side of the exhaust housing, so guessing the gauge is a bit optimistic/low, but I didn't see any numbers that scared me; freeway cruising was 450-600, depending on speed/grade/throttle.

Very happy with the purchase right now, time to continue maintenance and repairs to see what else needs attention.

 

[IDIBRONCO]

Sounds good so far. Maintenance (or lack there of in the case of my 1985 f250) is very important to the condition of these old trucks.

 

[Clb]

Ya might want to check with o dot' as to putting a farm truck back on the road,,concerning the dye in the fuel system.
Last I heard the red was a stain to visualize on the tank and lines and such.

 

[JLtoolman]

Around here, they check the tank with the little probe. If they don't find anything they move on. If it detects dye, they pull the fuel filter for evidence, from what I hear. I run off road and road fuel in equipment. The dye will color the fuel filter, but I have never seen any evidence in lines or metal parts, once green fuel is run through it. Anyone else see anything different?