WMO and lubrication?? What went wrong

[Billyisgr8]

So I got the word back regarding my injector pump, the advance piston was stuck .

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Av6Nu2feXk

This was a rebuilt pump 21000 km's ago. The company that did the rebuild said it was caused from not enough lube in the fuel. I have used 95ml of Howes diesel treat in every tank, thats 3 times the recomended amount per tank. 4 of the 8 brand new Stanadyne injectors with 21000kms on were not even spraying properly, they were streaming in one steady flow, no pulsing. I was new to diesels when I bought this truck 2 years ago, and have religously put in howes diesel treat with every fill up thinking that more is better. Well how much is better. Apperently 3 times the amount is not enough. I run used engine oil anywhere from 30 to 50 % The oil goes through 4 filters being pushed by 5psi before it goes in my truck, 150 micron, 40 micron, 25 micron and a 10 micron, then my truck runs a 5 micron Napa gold filter water seperator. The rebuild company only sells Stanadyne diesel additive, cause they say Howes does not lubricate like the stanadyne does. hmmm. They also said there was a black fine layer of something inside the pump, so all the filters I use, still isn't enough to get the fines removed from the WMO. Is it the WMO fines that caused the advance piston to stick, possibly, not sure though.

So what did I do wrong to have this happen? What should I be doing to not have this happen again? Maybe this can be used as an example for how fine to really filter down WMO too.

 

[WrickM]

first, and this is something Mel has touted, if oyu run WMO or any other alt fuel you should be putting away money for fuel system compnents. i would suggest half of what you save up to say 1500. Things can and will go wrong running WVO/WMO/Kerosene/atf or anything else that isn't #2 diesel, and for the record things can go wrong with that too

I like to filter WMO down to 1 micron. i can run 5 micron veggie oil all day, but half a tank of WMO at 5 clogs my filters.

Here is the tech article about fuel additives and lubrication. Howe's aint that great according to this http://www.oilburners.net/forums/showthread.php?t=33429

Also a company that does a rebuild is ALWAYS going to blame the failure on something they have no control over.

so my final thoughts
take what htey say with a grain of salt.
use something better to lube your fuel up. I vote B2-B20 biodiesel, because it's more gooder for the world. yes more gooder.
filter a little better with WMO though i still don't think that directly casued the failure.
Try heating your fuel a bit with an inline fuel heater. can't hurt nothin.

sorry to here about the failure.
Rick

 

[SparkandFire]

I agree with the B20, that biodiesel really lubes things up...

Everyone has their opinions on fuel system treatments, it sucks that we are all stuck with the ULSD these days.

I would think that just a scoosh of WMO/WVO would benefit the lubing of the pump/injectors, and with a 5 micron filter you should be getting most of the metal fines out before it runs through.

Biodiesel is a good option, but it will liquefy your natural rubber components.

Some say filtering down to 1 uM is necessary for WMO use...

 

[icanfixall]

Nobody can filter out the soot from wmo. About the only way it might be possible is to fractionate it thru a heated tower with vacuum on it. You would need around 26 inches of mercury (Under vacuum) and probably 400 degrees of heat. The oil is fed into the middle of the tower heated. Then the lites go up and the heavies go down to the bottom. If you are trying to rid the mix of water then the bottom material is what you recover. After the water has been removed then you do as described above and recover the overhead material. It can be done on a small scale glass pyrex tower in a lab but its expensive.

 

[international]

Nobody can filter out the soot from wmo. About the only way it might be possible is to fractionate it thru a heated tower with vacuum on it. You would need around 26 inches of mercury (Under vacuum) and probably 400 degrees of heat. The oil is fed into the middle of the tower heated. Then the lites go up and the heavies go down to the bottom. If you are trying to rid the mix of water then the bottom material is what you recover. After the water has been removed then you do as described above and recover the overhead material. It can be done on a small scale glass pyrex tower in a lab but its expensive.

You know too much...

 

[SparkandFire]

Nobody can filter out the soot from wmo. About the only way it might be possible is to fractionate it thru a heated tower with vacuum on it. You would need around 26 inches of mercury (Under vacuum) and probably 400 degrees of heat. The oil is fed into the middle of the tower heated. Then the lites go up and the heavies go down to the bottom. If you are trying to rid the mix of water then the bottom material is what you recover. After the water has been removed then you do as described above and recover the overhead material. It can be done on a small scale glass pyrex tower in a lab but its expensive.

Kinda like an oil diffusion vacuum pump!

VERY expensive!!!

 

[Agnem]

My personal opinion on this, is that your fuel and your Howes had nothing to do with the pump failure. I can tell by the video that their diagnosis is correct. The mechanical cam was moving the piston, but after that, the automatic advance was failing. I don't want to make guesses as to why it failed. It could be dirt, or it could have been a problem with the rebuild. However, I will tell you this, and that is I do NOT run any fuel additive in the Moosestang, and it drinks lots of WMO at ratios up to 80% oil to diesel, and I have not had a Baby Moose fail on me yet. It's been my experience that if anything, your advance piston is more likely to get too loose, then too tight with WMO as fuel. Now, if your pump sits a lot, I can see the WMO settling and gluing it stuck, but it would have to sit for months for that to happen.

 

[wilsondoctor]

Hello
I dont know why rigs fail in the fuel end of it anyway. I have been using a product from Alamagated Inc, called TDR-WDA. This my second Dodge Cummins , with no fuel associated problems at all. Sold my first 2500 Cummins with over 360,000 miles and My 96 has over 265,000
and is running great. This product increases the cetane and mileage and is cheep as well.
I dont care what anybody uses - you have to try it yourself - and not lisen to any ones opinion until you have one yourself.
Good luck
JL

 

[DragRag]

If you use wmo like I do, then your filters will need to be changed more often then normal. The savings is huge on the fuel bill, but there is a cost in filters and possibly injections parts, although I have had no failures there and I run 50-60% wmo.

 

[typ4]

Hello
I dont know why rigs fail in the fuel end of it anyway. I have been using a product from Alamagated Inc, called TDR-WDA. This my second Dodge Cummins , with no fuel associated problems at all. Sold my first 2500 Cummins with over 360,000 miles and My 96 has over 265,000
and is running great. This product increases the cetane and mileage and is cheep as well.
I dont care what anybody uses - you have to try it yourself - and not lisen to any ones opinion until you have one yourself.
Good luck
JL

The pump used on a cummins is nothing like our, if they are piston pumped engines they will last forever. Which is what I am guessing you had, because the ve pumps dont have that kind of service life, normally.