Maybe addressed already but..... Are there any issues to note running on road diesel (not red/pink) in off road equipment that normally has the dye in it.
You can run on-road diesel anywhere, in any machine. The red dye just means you have not paid road tax.
Yup, on road diesel is the same, just no dye in it.
X2. Same fuel.
going the one direction is relatively inexpensive, going the other might get you a $10,000 fine.
No both on road and off-road are Ultra Low Sulfur because both off and on road equipment require it nowadays for the emissions systems.
Too bad you can hardly find stations who sell off road fuel. I have one company local to me but they are only open 8-330 during the week. Can’t find another station within 50 miles that sells it.
that sucks. Around here all the cardlock stations have it. Ironically, their prices are high enough that regular stations in a price battle will sell taxed fuel for almost the same price.
Now begs the question: What additive has been proven to provide current diesel with past lubricity that older machinery was designed to run on?
my station doesn’t change their price often.... to be honest it’s been 2.99 for probably the past month or so. Diesel right now is 3.54, so it’s a .55 savings.
I've wondered something similar since I heard that the sulfur acts as a lubrication. So is all diesel low sulfur now?
To clarify, all on-road and off-road diesel is 15ppm ultra low diesel (ULSD), including marine and locomotive. Since 12/1/2012. There are EPA exceptions for heating oil, which can be no more that 500ppm. I might be wrong, but I don’t believe there is a single refinery, in the USA, making anything other than 15ppm ULSD. So where does low sulfur (500 ppm) Home Heat Oil come from? Alaska gets some of it from the Singapore rack. Because, when you are on the Pacific Rim and have to barge it anyways, you can purchase it from anyplace you want to. Including various nations with fuel ships floating around in International waters. Hustling fuel, making deals, suitcases with cash, all sorts of crazy stories you hear about when you drink with the fuel distribution manager at the airport.
It wasn't the sulfur that lubricated the IP. The process that removes sulfur from diesel also strips the lubricating properties of diesel.. from: https://www.intertek.com/petroleum/testing/diesel-fuel/lubricity/ "Hydroprocessing removes sulfur, along with polar and aromatic compounds, which give conventional diesel fuel adequate lubricating capability. Low lubricity in diesel fuel can cause engine problems unless treated with additives . Measurement of diesel fuel lubricity characteristics monitor lubricity additives and diesel fuel quality." Bolding mine...This means that home heating oil while very close to #2 diesel, does not have the additives required to protect the IP. Current EPA compliant diesel engines (common rail ) have much more particular fuel requirements than pre-EPA diesels.
Nothing like a good fuel thread. Time for a Saturday night story. So, we offloaded 1 million gallons of ULSD from the Lightweight a couple years ago. Way out on the Aleutian Chain. Made the deal, sighed the contract and took delivery. Except the Dude that’s supposed to do the fuel quality checks, didn’t,... We ended up with a water in fuel dilution that had been treated with some unidentifiable chemical that kept the water in solution. It would not stratify. After trying multiple things, to clean it, we acquired a couple giant centrifuges and 100 gallon filter vessels, chartered flights, and rigged plumbing on Blackmer pumps on a fuel truck to kidney loop the bulk tank. Ran two crews, 24 hour coverage to filter and centrifuge one million gallons from one bulk tank to another, spending tens of thousands of dollars to make this fuel meet ASTM spec so we could sell it. I think we still had to blend it with clean fuel to make it acceptable. Spirits were low, tensions were high, yelling and crying and careers were changed when it was all said and done.
The cardlocks here in Western Washington don't give us small users much of a price break. The taxed fuel is more expensive than Safeway, for example. I had the office do some price checks for me, as there is no price on the pump or ticket.
^the skeptic in me thinks that The Dude's lack of checking was no accident. " help me get rid of this crap fuel"
Skyking1, Speaking of a lonely port out in the Aleutians, I can make you a great deal today on 1OK gallons of 100LL for your aeronautical pursuits. It’s long expired, but what the heck. Someone, years ago, thought it was a good idea to stock up. In a community with a total of two reciprocal planes.
Since Av gas is leaded, the only use I see is lawn mowers and non catalyst petro engines... Long time to use 10k gallons of the stuff up on the ground.
10K gallons I could fly aboot the Northern Lights for a while on that! I need two prop overhauls and there's the matter of a few broken rings to take care of first.
The truth is, that is only 400 hours @25 GPH. Sobering truth.
Been a lot of brainstorming regarding what to do with all that 100LL. Being expired, can’t really use it in a plane at this point. Sure, probably work great for a private guy and his PA-12. But, the logistics get in the way. So it sits.
Off topic, but how big a plane does it take to use that much fuel per hour?
No idea exactly what the additive is (maybe Coaldust knows?), but all diesel fuel must meet a lubricity standard. The most common one I've come across is ASTM D6079 which in simple terms uses a reciprocating rig with the fuel as a lubricant and measures the size of the wear scar that is generated.
Something like this at 65% to 70% power. I ran it much leaner at 48% and 17 GPH, but DW has limited bladder capacity so the hurry up levers are usually moved forward for her. That was on the last big trip we took in 07. This was the price in northwestern Wyoming at the time.
Yes the logistics would be troublesome Expired 100LL would not trouble me if it could get analyzed properly.
Respectfully, from what I gather so far, is that nobody knows. I'll dig more and if I can find anything definite, I'll share it. Thanks.
If you are talking snake oil additives the answer is 0 the diesel coming out of the pumps has all the lubricity it needs. Bob
In Washington you pay about 10% sales tax on red diesel. Bob
Thanks. Just to make sure I understand, you are saying there is no difference between "old" diesel and "new" diesel in regards to possible effects on older equipment. Is that correct? Example: A piece of equipment built in 1990 running nothing but diesel from 1990 will experience the same performance and wear at 10,000 hours as if it were running nothing but diesel from 2021 for 10,000 hours. x=y. Correct?
Yes and no. Today’s gear is made to run on today’s fuel. (Except CP4 pumps, and they fail sitting on the shelf). Yesterday’s fuel lubricated pumps like the classic DB2 & Cat sleeve metering pumps see benefits from using a lubricity additive. That’s why some major distributors use a lubricity additive. It’s a value-added customer benefit and marketing tool.
Nige, I’ll take a look. I was interested myself regarding what was actually in the secret sauce. I took a picture of the label on the drums of additive we inject into the bulk tanks after the barge off loads and pulled up the SDS on it. It comes from Afton Chemical. BTW, almost all the lubricity additive comes from Afton. No matter what brand/blender you purchase from. The SDS has the typical stoddard solvent, cetane improver and the lubricant listed as proprietary or “ trademark secret”. Typically.
Since this thread is all over the place, and we are talking fuel and planes and 100LL. I’m going to brag about my boy and future in-house company pilot. Practicing approach work today in N97705. Burning some of that $7.00 100LL from Crowley.
Congrats Dad You know how to make a small fortune in aviation? Start with a large one! I'll be here all week......
Crowley has the only barge credentialed to transport aviation gasoline, as far as I know, on the West Coast. All 100LL comes from Crowley. Some gets trucked in from Canada. Crowley occasionally runs out late in the season. I have no idea where the Canadian av gas comes from.
Thanks Skyking. He’s really jazzed about it. Trying hard to get Mom & Dad to go in halfsies on various piles of junk he finds. I do appreciate his enthusiasm.
Yes hold him off on the piles of junk till you do a lot of research. Just as buying diesel truck in Western Washington will cost a premium, buying any airplane in Alaska is going to cost a premium. Much better to get some experience under his belt and go shopping in the broader market, once you all have a clue what you want.
Good advice. I suggested to just keep, keeping on with what he’s doing with Angel Aviation. I don’t really want a plane project next to my single-wide. I’d have to dig a new hole for the outhouse and move it. My retired neighbor has a nice 5/8 mile gravel strip adjacent to my backyard. Could probably work a deal with him for access. Clear some birch trees and create a grass taxi-way.
According to some documents I found our Shell ULSD used Innospec additives for Cetane Improver (Stadis® 425 ), Detergent (EcoClean), Oxidation Stabilizer (AO-24), & Lubricity Improver DCI-6A). It's also worth mentioning that all diesel fuel (whether it is ULSD or not) that is sold as being "in conformance with" ASTM Standard D975 must conform to a minimum standard for lubricity - a maximum 520μm scar size on the D6079 HFRR rig. NOTE: ASTM D975 has been the standard for diesel fuel for decades now. From all the analysis results I've seen over the years the actual lubricity of the fuel generally is significantly better than the value required under the standard. Typical scar size analysis values were in the region of 300-350μm.
Nige, innospec is a big global player. So is Afton Chemical. With Lubrizol, Chevron Oronite Company and BASF to a lesser extent. When we had the Anchorage Police Department contract with the Muni for RUG, part of the agreement was that we would supply 93 octane. We could only get 90 at the rack. So, we blended them a 93 RUG using a Innospec additive that came in a drum.
Innospec Lubricity Improver DCI-6A appears to be mostly Calcium Nitride according to the SDS.
Nige brings up a good point. Sometimes we do stuff and forget why we do it. The reason we originally chose Powerservice with the Afton Chemical lubricity additive was because it was compatible with the mono acid based lubricity additive that Tesoro was selling at the Port of Anchorage terminals. That is an important point. If you wish to add a lubricity additive, it needs to be compatible with the fuel you are purchasing. Yes, bad things can happen if you don’t. I’ll add a link to a paper you can read to learn why. Fuel lubricity additives are either acid-based or neutral based. Two types of acid based additives- Those are: Mono-acid (single long-chain polar end molecule Acid-based dimmer (double long-chain end molecule Neutral based: Ester Talking with my colleague who knows more than me, he explains that about 50% of the fuel in the North American market meets the D6079 HFRR rig test under ASTM D975. Why? Because nobody monitors it. Why does your Detroit DD15 owners manual say don’t use additives? Not because Detroit doesn’t want good fuel lubricity, it’s because they have no idea what fuel you are purchasing and what additives you are going to pour in the tank. It’s too complicated. Too many variables at play.
Very good article explaining all this; https://www.aftonchemical.com/Afton...cid-Lubricity-Improver-Technical-Brochure.pdf TLDR: Climate determines what lubricity additive to use. High TBN HDEO don’t interact well with dimer acid-based fuel lubricity additives Pipeline anti-corrosion additives can make injectors stick. dimer acid-based and ester lubricity additives don’t play well sometimes with other anti-corrosion, anti-static, anti-foaming & cetane additives.
Keep in mind, you guys running B20, B10 or B whatever in the L48, bio does well with the D6079 HFRR rig test. Adds a significant amount of lubricity. Creates other issues, though. I don’t deal with bio, so I’m not that familiar with the water and biologics issue.
Looks like the Shell fuel that Nige shared the example of, uses an ester based DCI-6A. So, he would not want to additize Powerservice to his Caterpillar spread while listening to Cat Scratch Fever.
Does this do anything?
It makes your wallet a lot thinner. just what are you trying to accomplish ? Bob
Oh, I didn't have a goal in mind other than making sure to do the best possible regarding fuels in older equipment. Thanks.
IDK, JCinNC. I’ll see if I can locate the SDS and backtrack from there to see what’s in it. Sounds like you just need a lubricity additive and something to help with the biofuel issues. The TRC might be overkill. Where do you source your fuel?
Either at a local service station (on road) or can have it delivered by a fuel dealer to a tank on the farm. (off road) Not really turning over fuel like we used too so I'm weighing the option of getting on road when needed vs. filling the tank and having it sit for a long duration & perhaps becoming contaminated in some way. Thanks for all the input.
You are welcome. Call your fuel guy (Cenex, or the like) and ask for a spec sheet, or just ask if they additize. Your local fuel may be just fine.
From the sounds of what Coaldust has posted above, it won't pay to try and add to fuel if you don't stay with a consistent brand. It could backfire.
The TRC product that HCinNC was asking about is not a typical blended diesel fuel additive like we’ve been discussing. It appears to be 100% alkylated naphthalene. AN is a common solvent, cleaner and high pressure, high heat lubricant. It’s a common ingredient in many spray lubes, degreasers, cleaners, penetrating oils, paint and such. It’s a good emulsifier. So, it Might help with the water issues associated with bio diesel and work as a lubricant. The chemistry and application of alkylated naphthalene in diesel is way above my head. IDK? Can’t say if it’s going to do you any good, or not. Anyone remember putting mothballs in the gas tank? Same stuff.
One major issue with Bio Blends is they actually attack the plastics in some manufacturers fuel lines, they simply self destruct as the bio removes the bonds in those plastics. As to additives, many are paraffin based and not compatible in the engines fuel systems anymore.