wmo trips

[leswhitt]

Well I finished the trip with no issues and am now in Buffalo, NY. I scaled the truck at one of my last stops and was at 25,400 lbs. Judging by the spare stuff that I tossed/gave away during the trip, I'd be that I was nearing 27K at some points during the trip.

MPG worked out to just under 7 for the majority of the trip and I definitely get better mpg on straight diesel than I do my WMO mix, probably right around .75 mpg better.

I was a bit worried in CO, I was pulled over by a CO State Trooper because in her words, "My truck was throwing black smoke like it was either a freight train or on fire". I thought maybe I had broken something but when I checked the GPS, I saw that I was at 9,000 ft....no wonder. The highest crest was 11,400 feet and it was a solid hour of 2nd gear at 7mph to even get to the top! Coal was definitely rolling then... When I got past Denver and back to a reasonable altitude the smoke cleared up and it was back to it's normal little puffs of white smoke at startup and idle.

Overall, the truck ran about 10K miles on this trip and burned approximately 600 gallons of WMO. I would've loved to have burned more but my supply ran out and I didn't have enough filtering time left to warrant collecting any more once I got to CO. Even while mobile, I found that settling was key to pull any water out of the oil and filtering was key to make sure that sludge didn't get through. I ran about 17% RUG to help with the settling and thought that was about right to make all the crap drop out. For filtering, I'm using two Fram 20 mic/10 mic oil filters followed by a Wix 6 micron filter. For the pump, I had a SBC pump that was aces on the first part of the trip and then crapped out. I finally bought a HF barrel pump in Las Vegas and that's been the best pump so far. to keep the arms from getting too sore, I'm going to either hook a gas or electric motor to it and aim for 100 RPM when I'm collection which should be @14 GPM. For filtering, I'll slow it down to about 25 RPM for a nice flow of 3.5 GPM.

That's about it, hopefully this info helps out the next guy...

 

[leswhitt]

Oh yeah, I had such a positive experience with W85 and my Uhaul that I'm going to pick up a 2001 Excursion and run it in that too. With diesel hovering at $4.20 and gas at $3.89 here in Buffalo, it won't take me long to sock away enough parts money to replace an engine if need be.

 

[bigtex]

this gonna sound like a dumb question, but what is w85?

 

[leswhitt]

this gonna sound like a dumb question, but what is w85?

Nah, not a dumb question at all. W85 is what folks are calling 85% waste oil and 15% regular unleaded gas (RUG). My mix is technically W83 since I run 17% RUG and depending on how the Excursion likes it, I might up it to W80.

 

[bigtex]

how well does the unleaded interact with the engine? and does it cut the oil enough so the gas isnt really gas anymore?

 

[leswhitt]

how well does the unleaded interact with the engine? and does it cut the oil enough so the gas isnt really gas anymore?

From my experience, I haven't had any problems at all and think it interacts with the engine just fine. And yes, it cut's the oil enough so that the viscosity is close to diesel and the resulting mix is good to go. Considering that most diesels will tolerate at least 5-10% gas mixed into the diesel, I don't have any reservations about mixing 15-25% into thick oil.

 

[bobbywalter]

the suck here for the traveling u haul gnome is i could have got you about 200 gallons of crane hyd oil when you were in north port......but i am not on the net much and rare on here....bummer. its decent enough to run straight down there...i pump it through a 10 then a 3 and go.

i only run the rug with 30 wt and heavier though, not my favorite by any means compared to the hydro or trans fluid. between 60-65 my psd pulls 22-23 on diesel and 17-21 on mix steady freeway, my ranger with 33's runs 18-20 or so on diesel at 60-65 and 14-17 mix on wasted injectors...on 37's at 65-70 14-16...13's through kentucky/tenn i have a fresh pump and injectors for it though...but the pump is set for a turbo so i will need some time to do all that and get the turbo on there....probably bust the engine in half first hill i go over...

the day driller opposite of me runs a 04 or maybe a 03 duramax and gets 20-22 on straight at 70...at go to work/home speeds he is bout 17 mpg though.....he wont touch anything but diesel from the road pump. probably a good idea with one of those things.

i am jealous of that. nice truck, he bought it new. lately we do two weeks on two weeks off tours. but i dont have what it cost to buy one of those new into my last 4 trucks. except my ranger....i killed alot of transmissions in that thing when it was stock.....and when i had gasser v8 engines before i learned to build them myself. i just plopped this 6.5 combo in there and been saving money ever since


as to the original question...
been running mixes since 02. usually clean up for winter though and run diesel in majority or 100% when highs are under 15 degrees. cost as low as 80 bux to go one way( bout 1500 miles) to work in fla on the 80 percent mix in my psd van. probably close to 110-20 today.

so i mix up flying and driving as i dont like 48 hrs on the road every hitch, generally a work hitch is 42-4300 miles and with 180-200gallons of oil, i should be about 250-280 bux for next hitch of pump fuel on a round trip....not bad really.....its the fawkin 90 dollar oil changes that are the problem...

i dont see easy free oil being around as this catches on....i miss running trans fluid in majority...where i live and work its hard to get easily. they are not buying it anymore currently so i am sure my local trans guy will be good for quite a few gallons a week.

 

[leswhitt]

Just checking back in to say that i made a mistake on the weight, at the end of the trip I hit the scales and I was just shy of 26K. This was with our older Odyssey in tow so without that, I was still over 20K. 7.5mpg wasn't too bad after I realized I was 4-5K lbs shy on my weight estimate. Overall, the truck performed great, did everything we asked it too, made it up to the Eisenhower tunnel, and rolled across Nebraska at 68-69 mph all day long without a hiccup.

Bobbywalter, I'll be hitting up North Port again in the summer, maybe I can catch you down there and fill up before heading back home. This time around I'll be in an '01 Excursion that I bought just to run WMO in, we'll see how it's holding up by the time the North Port trip comes around.

 

[leswhitt]

Oh yeah, I had such a positive experience with W85 and my Uhaul that I'm going to pick up a 2001 Excursion and run it in that too. With diesel hovering at $4.20 and gas at $3.89 here in Buffalo, it won't take me long to sock away enough parts money to replace an engine if need be.

Well I picked up the Excursion (2000, 7.3, 4x4) a few months ago and have been running W85 for the last 7-8K miles. I upgraded my filtering and now use a PA Biodiesel centrifuge and make 8-10 passes with the oil. Highway mpg is a bit low at 15mpg but that's usually pulling a small trailer that weighs ~1K lbs. The 7.3 PSD smokes alot more than my Uhaul did, I'm looking into getting a DP tuner that'll hopefully reduce the smoke and boost my mpg's.

I've made several 1K+ mile trips in the Excursion with no fuel related issues at all. So far I've only replaced one fuel filter and I have about 4000 miles on my current filter and my fuel pressure is still looking good. Other than the smoke which is only noticeable during extended idling, the truck is running great

Hope this helps someone!