What is your opinion on burning your waste oil in your tractor/truck? What I am getting at is does anyone do this? Is it possible? What are the pros and cons? I recently talked to a trucking company 100 miles east of here and they say they have been doing it for years (burning the waste oil produced by their trucks). They currently run about 15 or so Kenworth trucks that range from early 80's to the late 90's that are all cummins power (350 400 big cams and maybe some N14??) and have had no troubles. I dumped about 5 gals into a long term rental backhoe we had, JD310e and I must say we didn't have any trouble with it (additional 150 hours). I ask this question because fuel is so cheap these days ointhead. Thanks for your advice. :usa
The waste oil company here mixes all used oil, then filters it and sells it as a low grade heating oil. It gets burned at asphalt plants and in other similar industrial operations. I don't think I would run it in my equipment. If you look around and can find a source for non PCB transformer oil that may be a possible fuel.
I don't own any equipment besides my old JD830. I believe you make more maintenace hence the words dirty oil in the fuel system. I believe if you use it in asphalt that would be the best thing. If you care for your equipment then you'd know the damage this could do and I'm sure disposal is much cheaper than a new engine or other maintenance which would require extensive down time. I also believe you need to take the sources when you are about to put in question ones livelihood to save a buck only to spend much more. I don't many any disrespect but you asked our opinion and I gave mine.
No offense taken euclid. I agree with you as far as the savings doesn't out weigh the cost of a new fuel system not to mention another engine. I still am baffled by the other trucking operation I mentioned that has been doing this for years and years and (so they say) have not had any trouble? How bout you try it for me euclid, and let me know the results before I try it again.:drinkup All kidding aside, thanks for the input.
In an old uke I would becuae you figure the age and hours it might not matter.... And thye smoke tohigh heaven anyways so no-one would be the wiser. I think sometime folks like to blow smoke up the darker areas. In fact on the 95 Ford I drove while in the Navy it had a warning that said: do not use used oil in the fuel system because it would clog the cat . I drove it for 2 years and it was brand new when I got it. I hauled weapons from the ship to the magazine in it and I knew it very well so what it is worth I'd let those guys buy the beers if your drinking with them. :drinkup
I had a buddy tell me he was putting used oil in his f-350. Says the truck ran smoother and wasn't as loud. I would be scared to try it. But good luck if you do.
Used to be a good ole Georgian redneck trucker on another site who ran his ''burnt'' oil in his Cummins pickup.He swore up and down how his engine loved his brew and didn't care that he was risking huge fines because he was also running red.His buddy told me he was always having injector issues---wonder why????
i looked into it a bit and if the oil doesnot have any metal shavings or foriegn debris it should work just fine after all the new bio deisil garbage is basiclly recyled cooking oil and with the cost of fuel i might be inclined to try and burn banana peals if i could i wont say that i would put it in my truck or tractor but a rental heak yes.
i just spoke to a guy about the subject and says hes put waste oil in his 95 f350 since hes had it and and never had any problem he also swerars by it he says " just adds lubracant to the fuel, and that he might even recomend it every now and again. "
With older mechanical injectors and MUCH lower fuel PSI in older engines,waste oil mixed with diesel would have a higher tolerance for this practice{I'm being real nice here}.Newer engines with electronic injectors and 25K PSI wouldn't fare as well.It's like that old commercial on TV--''You could pay me now or pay me later" scenario.It's all about how much you're willing to risk and the longevity of your engine.
Bingo:scool it is about the tolerances and when mucking about with computers you get into bad situations that could have been prevented by thinking you can or could save a buck:shf
I think it would only be an issue if the equipment is heavily loaded. You need to run lean to burn off heavier oils. Otherwise, you'll be left with sludge and carbon. Go easy on the engine, and I say it's a great idea, especially with this market.
Some of the modern cummins' burn the oil in the engine and automatically replace it via a second engine oil tank. I'm not sure but i believe its at about 7ltrs per hundred.
I've talked to guys that are running used oil in their fuel and not having any issues, but then again they are all older pickups with mechanical pumps. I get approached by folks that want my used oil for vehicle fuel or building heat. I think Tuney hit the nail on the head with tolerences. With the tighter tolerences and higher pressures on the new injector systems you will need to filter the used oil down to a lower micron. One guys told me he is building a centrifuge to clean his oil before putting it in his truck. One guy here in Iowa said he runs nearly 100% used oil in the summer months, then starts to dilute it down in the cooler months with diesel fuel so that it will flow. Pretty neat stuff. I like people that think outside the box.
cat have an option on their serious machinrd whereby it constantly burns oil thus extendiong the oil changes to something like 4k hours. probably similar to the cummins system. i have no idea how it works nor where int he system the oil is introduced, its a feature they tout on their mining machinery brochures. if cat do it then i assume its both possible and feasible over the long term
I combined used oils in fuel systems on Cat dozers and scrapers, other machines too for several years in the eighties. It was an accepted practice then before emissions and the environment became such an issue. We filtered the oil carefully, also made sure that no one dumped cleaning solvent or coolant into the collection tank. Most of the engine manufacturers had specific standards for what percentage of used oil to fuel you could run. I would agree with some here that older machines up to about 1990 could run safely with used oil, after that, with the changes in fuel system technology, I don't believe I would try it. One project office manager that I worked with in Pennsylvania bought old home heating oil without my knowledge for use as fuel in our machines. He had done this on his previous project and saved a bundle on fuel costs. However, the high acid level of that fuel etched the injectors and the high pressure injector pump in a newer Cat 245 excavator and ended up costing us over 25000 bucks for new parts and labor. Thinking back, I believe it cost us an engine in a 777B haul truck too, which was not cheap to replace and there was a week or more down time on both machines to consider. I burned waste oil in a burner that heated our shop in Colorado. Believe we put about 50000 gallons through it in about two years. The heating element gave us constant trouble and the fuel filters were also in need of replacement nearly every week. The ash built up inside the heater tubes till they plugged up and when we used a shop vac to suck the ash out of those tubes, it blew right out of the vacuum all over the shop. It was an exceptionally fine powder, like talc. Had to dismantle the furnace and wash the tubes out after that fiasco. But that furnace kept the entire shop warm without the use of the infrared gas heaters located in rows on each side of the shop. I don't think you can use waste oil burners in Colorado anymore, not legally anyway. At the time (1992), Komatsu was injecting small amounts of engine oil into the intake manifold on WA600 loaders, of which I had two. This resulted in the plugging off of the air compressor discharge tube with a brownish coke like material. This happened to both machines at about the same time with maybe 3500 hours on each machine. After replacing the parts and realizing what caused the problem, we plugged off the line feeding the engine oil into the intake. Just an unintended consequence of what some engineer thought was a good idea. I do not know how Cat and others are burning used oil in their machines today other than the method does not use oil collected from several sources. The oil Cat uses is from the individual machines own engine, which as I recall, was Cat's recommendation years ago, which we ignored in our zeal to get rid of waste oil as cheaply as possible. Back then, we were under the hammer to be very careful about allowing waste oil off the projects, as the company had just gotten sucked into a federal cleanup at a used oil refinery in Salt Lake City, for which they were paying a large sum of money. As I recall, only one 4500 gallon load of company oil had been delivered to the refinery, but the company ended up being one of the top five firms cited and having to pay. We thought it was mostly the result of the outfit having deep pockets if you know what I mean. We didn't let any waste oil go off the job in Colorado, but in other places we did. In that time I sold waste oil for as much as 45 cents a gallon (in Maryland), and paid as much as 25 cents a gallon to have it removed in eastern Pennsylvania. I also started checking the places our waste oil went pretty closely as that was a time when some pretty serious problems were discovered with waste oil haulers and collection or refinery facilities. Indeed, there was a used oil barrel reconditioning facility in Grand Junction that was forced to close because of pollution problems. They'd been in business for decades and the ground the plant stood upon was heavily saturated with all kinds of bad stuff, and they were right on the edge of the Colorado River. There is a lot of soot and acid even in today's used motor oils. Take that into consideration if you decide to burn the oil in your engines. I don't know that it's worth the trouble really, the potential for expensive repairs and downtime are very real, plus the added expense of extra fuel filters or pre-filter fuel processing equipment. New oil isn't cheap either, which the engines that burn their own oil use in varying amounts. Next consider the effect the extra ash and soot have on catalytic converters and exhaust systems if waste oil is burned in systems with which equipped. User beware!
BE CAREFUL. A good friend of mine has a duramax diesel and he changes his oil @ 50% life. He was running used oil and we had a full load of round bales on the gooseneck and the truck went into limp mode due to low rail pressure due to a dirty fuel filter. I went out and changed his filter and its was full of crap, the filter had only 200hrs. on it. Another thing the tier3 engines will not handle the crappy fuel any more. We had one run backwards in a linkbelt 330 with a 6hk1 isuzu. we found that the injector tip cracked and filled the cylinder with fuel. It had water in the fuel and the tip wouldn't pass the water drop. A tier3 injector tip has twice as many holes, but they are only half the size of a tier2
I wouldnt w/these newer systems and tight clearances. Older diesels would burn about an ything
bstiles, The Duramax diesel in the Chevrolet/GMC pickups have a 4-micron filter. Your friend might want to change the filter again in the near future to prevent unplanned downtime. I've talked to several Duramax guys this winter, they are having the most trouble that I've heard of with fuel filter waxing in the cold weather. The new 2008 Duramax are a nightmare to change the fuel filter on I'm told. I thought the 2006 was bad enough. Once spring gets here a lot of the filter issues will fade away until next winter. Good luck! John
CAT's is called Oil Renewal System. (ORS) Only really seen it on 3500 engine's with EUI. A valve on the side Inject's a small amount of oil into the return side of the Fuel system and a Header tank up near the Master key (D11R) inject's fresh oil into the motor. Works well when it's not filling the crank case with fuel
Used oil does burn-I think the old gasogen system is key :usaI read up about using wood to produce an 80 octain engine fuel for just about any engine and I wonder if the same system for vaporizing the wood could work to vaporize oils ? After all when you spill some used oil on any hot surface that makes the oil smolder well, it takes "instant flame" if a flame is passed through the rising smoke stream. So I believe any safe system that can heat the used oil up to a hot smoldering temp and then channels it directly to the combustion chamber along with a preheated air supply it should make a diesel run as well as a gas. I think of it as burning oil smoke not liquid oil so the waste particles may never enter the combustion chambers.
Regarding gelling in the Dmax,that's only because those owners were most likely not running an anti-gel additive.I've had the original LB7,the LLY,and now my LBZ version and have never gelled.I've been out overnite in -20* in Vermont--never an issue.Why? Just simple PM--I use Howes or Schaeffer anti-gel in EVERY fill-up.I change my fuel filter at 10-12K miles also.It's no picnic, but I can do it now in 15 minutes.
We haven't had any issues at -20 below here in NE Iowa, but when we hit -35 to -40 below all heck was breaking loose around here. We have been getting heavy fuels around here all winter with high cloud points. This heavy fuel with the tighter filtration has caused problems. I've had customers using Howes, Power Service and others plug the filters this winter. I don't feel it was the fault of the anti-gel products they were using. Most anti-gels will only punch the cloud-point down -20 to -34 degrees. So with a beginning cloud point of 20 degrees, the additive can't get the cloud points down low enough for -35 to -40 below. I've got several customers and friends with the Duramax and they have had great service out of these engines, so not faulting GM or the Duramax. Thanks for the feedback. John
Gee, I haven't had any problem with fuel gelling with my 08 Duramax here. Starts and runs like a Swiss watch every time. One can try using Kerosene or #1 diesel when the temps drop. Cheaper in the long run over using expensive additives. These fuels may be hard to find however at your local truck stop. Think I only saw a couple last year that had pumps for them in Montana or Idaho. Not sure how the warranty regards such usage. Another solution is to use a fuel heater ahead of the filter. I believe I saw some advertised in one or another diesel truck magazines, you know the kind, the ones that advertise 1000HP bolt on kits and nitro injection setups. If I was to run steady in a state that mandates biodiesel, like Minnesota, I think I would ad the heater and a pre-filter or strainer that was easier to service than the present filter setup.
I was a dispatcher for a tank truck company that would burn used oil in the fuel. The driver just left the fuel level about 4" from the top. The oil change machine would suck diesel out of the tank and would be blended with filtered used engine oil. The blend would then be pumped back into the fuel tank. The blending machine would run until the drain pan was empty. The trucks were 315 Cummins Big Cam IV's. We had no injector or pump issues in the three years I worked for them and some of the trucks had upwards of 700K miles on them. I would NOT do this on the newer high pressure common rail engines.
The Cummins version is called Centinel . The "Centinel Advanced Oil Management System" is an embedded system that extends oil change intervals on electronically controlled diesel engines by periodically removing a small amount of used oil from the engine's crankcase and replacing it with fresh oil. The used oil is sent to the engine's fuel tank, where it is blended with the fuel and burned during normal combustion. This system is not allowed in Australia (Even though I have seen it on engines plenty of times) due to the Fuel Quality Standards Regulations 2001 and the Fuel Standard (Automotive Diesel) Determination 2001 which can be seen here .
Builders Transport from years ago(giving away my age) ran all it's used oil through filters and into their fuel tanks at 5 gallons per hundred gallons of fuel. they were,of course, running the manual pumps instead of electronics. I'm told by my dealer mechanics that it would only add lubrication to the fuel if filtered by 10 micron filters before adding.
I did this when fuel got over $4.00, 90 F250 7.3 IDI 250,000 on truck and 150,000 on pump and injectors. Used a 55 gallon barrel, 35 gallons diesel, 15 used oil. Would circulate it thru a 5 micron filter with a diaphragm pump, then a 2 micron filter when pumped into tank. The 7.3s have a fuel heater in the filter base, also the old body styles had 2 fuel tanks. I would keep clean diesel in the back tank and switch to that tank about 2-3 miles from home and start the truck on clean the next am. Couple times I forgot to switch tanks and there was odor and smoke, once it warmed up the smoke and odor went away. Did this for over 6 months, till fuel went back down. The engine is still running fine, never had filter issues, would never try it in something new. Pump and injectors for these things are almost free compared to new trucks.
would the oil separate in a tank if left alone for a long time?
EMP Corp in Escanaba, Michigan builts these systems and it is actually a pretty neat little package. www.emp-corp.com :usa
It's been said those old marks (believe they were talking b models) Would run on anything you dump in the tank. some mentioned centrifuge these engines came with centrifuges from the factory maybe you could use one of these. I believe that oil procured from a quick change oil lube and go would have a much higher acid content. Don't think acid run through your pump is that bad... It's the sitting in the pump over night that may hurt.
I typed Mack truck and my phone typed mark? By the way these centrufuges were for the motor oil, not fuel. More important before the centrufuge is a good "settling tank*" And given the time to settle. Picture a fuel oil tank you dump waste oil in the top. at the very bottom is a valve you kick open once and a while to let the water and antifreeze out. six inches above that is the valve you take the "settled oil"
I used a lot of waste diesel engine oil as a fuel back in the late 80's and early 90's in mostly Caterpillar and some Komatsu and Hough equipment. I didn't have any trouble with it as we used about a 15-20% ratio of waste oil to #2 diesel fuel mixture. It did plug up fuel filters a bit faster, though we never had any real problems with that as they were changed on a regular basis. We didn't note any trouble in our engine oil samples either. Most of the engines that used this were Cat D346 pre-cup models. The rest were more modern 3400 series direct injection Cats, and the Komatsu's and Hough's were direct injection models too. I did this on three separate projects. The last job, we also used waste oil to fuel our shop heater. We only used waste diesel oil in the engine fuel blending, but the heater tank got everything. The heater worked well the first two winters (Western Slope, Colorado), but began to give us trouble after that. We discovered that the ash buildup in the burner tubes was considerably more than expected. The fuel heater also started to give us trouble by not working or barely working. None the less, we got rid of several thousand gallons of waste oil and did not have to pay to get rid of it. fix is correct, do NOT pump straight off the bottom or bottom end of the heater oil tank. The water, bacteria, and antifreeze will do your end use no good. The slush must be drained off every so often. Now, that all said, one must also be careful just what kind of fuel goes into your machines fuel tanks. Do NOT used old Kerosene or home heating oil that has been retrieved from homeowners private oil tanks. It will most likely contain a lot of Sulfur, water, bacteria, and acids. I received a newer Cat 235 excavator off another company project in Pennsylvania where the office manager had been in charge of purchasing fuel. Ever zealous to cut costs, he bought several loads of old home heating oil as fuel for that projects equipment. The 235 engine had one of the first very high pressure fuel injection pumps, and the machine gave us trouble from the very first day on the job. I finally had the Cat House sent a tech down to work on it and he found that the injection pump and nozzles were faulty. In their fuel shop, they discovered, upon disassembly, that all the internal parts of the pump and injectors were etched severely from the acid, so badly in fact, that the entire pump had to be thrown out and replaced with a new one -- at about $30,000. There were another 3000 bucks in the service fees, etc. Then we also had to remove the fuel tank and have it cleaned out. There was about two and a half weeks of down time as well. Waste diesel engine oil can be blended into your fuel, but it has to be tightly controlled and managed. With regard to today's engines, I don't believe I would take the chance with it, especially with OTR fuel in trucks, etc. Even using it for heating purposes poses a big problem with environmental laws being what they are in most places.