Fuel Filter

[gandalf]

We drove over to the coast Saturday to spend a day at the beach a bit south of Santa Cruz. Part way over my daughter said, "Hey, what does that light mean, the one that says 'Fuel Filter'?" Sure enough, the filter idiot light was on. It came on whenever I worked the engine. Level ground, steady cruise, I could watch it fade.

Otherwise the engine was running fine, so I made a command decision and kept going. Admittedly, I had a bit of help from my two grandsons--"Are we almost there?" The truck did seem just a bit down on power, but I attributed that to the hill (hiway 17) and the cabover camper. Anyway, we kept on, had a good day at the beach, and made it home without problem.

Whenever possible I burn B99, almost pure biodiesel. The fuel system cleaning properties of biodiesel are well known and very true. When I took off the fuel filter I found a brown sludge inside. It wasn't a whole lot, not enough to kill the engine, but it pretty well coated the filter element. Had it gotten worse I would have had to pull over and change the filter alongside the road. I had a spare behind the rear seat.

Is there any way to estimate how far/long I could have run on the old filter before it effectively took me off the road? This would be good knowledge to keep in mind should I ever have to push it further.

 

[towcat]

ken-
when your motor stalls out as you lift your foot off the throttle from a medium to a hard pull, the end is near.

 

[Exekiel69]

Well I know dang well that ff light (running wvo), one thing is if it is blinking (not so bad at the time) and another thing if it is ON all the time, meaning start looking for a place to pull over soon or You'll have to pull the truck out of the highway using Your own power. Depending how long You've burned bd You could have a couple more of this episodes so I'd have a spare ff just in case there is more gunk coming from the tank.