Horrible Mileage in a '92 F250 burning WVO

[basilbowman]

Thanks everybody - it is the tach sensor, I just did a **** poor job of describing it (cylinder three inches long? What's that?). Anyways, I'm headed over to Shadetreemechanic's tonight after work, he's graciously offered to help me out.
As far as going veggie oil goes, it seems like the thing to do, I mean, the rest of the truck is solid, it's just this detail. I'm careful, and I feel like I've got a pretty good setup. I've got SVO in the front tank, with an in tank heater, running HIH up to where I've moved the pollak underneath the hood. I've got an aftermarket heated filter that I've yet to splice onto the grease line, but I've got a filament wrapped around the steel line coming off the stock filter into the injector pump that I've wired up to switch on when I flip to the SVO tank. I always purge and start up on diesel and wait until the heater is good and hot before flipping over and I don't really run straight veggie oil, I toss a gallon or two of diesel in every tank of grease.
From what Shadetreemechanic has told me, and from the info I'm getting from you guys, I don't think it's going into limp mode - it's not redlining as I go down the freeway (I'd not have put quite so many miles on it if it were) and I can hear it shift all the way up and back down. I can flip the O/D off and on, and it shifts just like you'd expect it to, and the light works, so it's not flashing like Shadetreemechanic asked (already expecting the answer, I think). It feels like it's shifting early, so I'm going to play with the TPS settings tonight, and it _is_ shifting hard when it does shift, but I can kind of goose it and let it relax into that shift to ease up on it, which I've been doing.
I'm not really sure what's up, but I'm going to let the pro direct from the lawn chair while I spin wrenches tonight and I'll report back in the morning, hopefully. In the meantime, time to edit my signature and get to work. Thanks for the help, everybody, I'll be back shortly,

-N

 

[basilbowman]

[Deleted]

 

[OLDBULL8]

For all those that mix gasoline to thin there WMO and WVO, read this. Then wonder what happened to your engine after awhile.

http://www.turbodieselregister.com/mixing_gasoline_and_diesel.htm

 

[Blind Driver2]

For all those that mix gasoline to thin there WMO and WVO, read this. Then wonder what happened to your engine after awhile.

http://www.turbodieselregister.com/mixing_gasoline_and_diesel.htm

Youre bringing rain to the parade of those that are running 85/15 WMO mix

 

[Shadetreemechanic]

I got him on the road headed to Kentucky about a half hour ago. His tranny had been running without a tach without sending his tranny into limp mode. The tranny fluid smelled fine.
Since he was headed out on a long trip, I loaned him the tach sensor out of my truck. (I don't have anywhere to go). Tranny worked fine after that. We also bumped his timing up abit.
The truck only has 119k, with no blowby. It looked like he had put alot of work into his two tank system, even moving the switchover valve to under the hood to shorten purge times.
He is a student at the University where I work. I will see alot of him in the fall and am not worried about getting my sender back.

 

[DeepRoots]

you are a good man Shadetree, if ya ever wander 5-6 hours south, I owe ya a beer

 

[basilbowman]

Sorry about the delay - work got a bit ahead of me and needed to catch up. As shadetree says, the tach sensor was bad, so I borrowed his and grabbed one at Pull-a-part the next day (by the way, shadetree - if your wife didn't tell you - yours is back in the engine of your truck in your driveway, thanks for the loan). Now it shifts much smoother and gets about 14-15mpg, a significant improvement. I'm still thinking I can probably do better, but this is miles ahead of what it was. I did clog another fuel filter on the interstate driving back at 4:30 in the morning and have to change it on the side of the road - then bleed the injector lines by myself one at a time until I could get most of the air out of the lines, but that's a story for another day. Right now I'm trying to find a place to set up a filtering station and that'll be another thread. Thanks for the help all - any other mileage saving tips?

 

[DeepRoots]

any other mileage saving tips?

buy a VW?

seriously, I used 1micron filters from mcmaster-carr for filtering in the shop. It helps to have duel filters on the truck with three valves, so I could run either one or both of them.
With WVO I ran into alot of the smaller valves clogging, that sucked. Also avoid steel tanks, aluminum everything.

good luck!
Drew