Off road diesel - How do you find locations?

[bmaverick]

Youre saying red dyed fuel loses red color with Seafoam added to it?

The red dye tends to coat metal parts like a machinist blue dye does on steel. Seafoam dissolves the red dye off of the metal surfaces.

Old engines work fine with ORD. But, the newer engines with all the fancy stuff and emissions need cleaners more often to get the dye out.

Oddly, K-1 sells for about the same price as ORD depending on the station and season. It's another way people get around the red dye.

Some states allow Farm trucks to run on ORD as those are registered as being tax exempt. States like Colorado, Texas, Florida and others allow for these exemptions to use at the pump filling Ag or timber use trucks with ORD fuel. The states don't want to do the paper work and refunds every quarter, so they allow those plated vehicles to just fill up.

Alabama still requires an exempt vehicle to fill up at the normal diesel pump, copy of receipts and each quarter refunds the Ag trucks and machinery, Marine commercial fishing boats, etc $0.27 per gallon.

Tennessee is strange. They put the tax on the dyed diesel fuel at the pump. You pay the tax regardless. Then you send in your receipts for the tax refund. So, regardless if it's dyed or not, those without the exemption can't claim the rebate on those vehicles.

Many states allow the farm trucks to drive to the station to fill up and return to the farms with dyed red ORD.

Even tough we are in a forum here, it's best to consult what laws and rules apply to your state and how to fill up those machines or trucks.

In the summer, one can blend into the diesel good ol' vegetable oil. It's about $2.15/gal. No power lose nor fuel economy lose. Depending on the diesel engine, blending can be 50/50 to 80/20 of diesel to veg oil. So, the blending is way cheaper than ORD with red dye. Some Ag coops sell VO diesel fuel blends already. VO = Veggie oil. It's considered ORD to a degree, with no red dye.

 

[clemsonfor]

Youre saying red dyed fuel loses red color with Seafoam added to it?

Yes, the paper is a test strip that reacts with the dye, so it can pick up trace amounts of dye. Whether it can do so in the presence of, just hypothetically speaking, two cycle oil, I have no clue. Since I don't run ORD, I can't test it either.

All the best,

Peter

I don't own an on road diesel engine therefore I don't any fuel on the road. If I did own one, it's not worth getting caught. I only run off road and twc3 oil in my tractor.

 

[clemsonfor]

The red dye tends to coat metal parts like a machinist blue dye does on steel. Seafoam dissolves the red dye off of the metal surfaces.

Old engines work fine with ORD. But, the newer engines with all the fancy stuff and emissions need cleaners more often to get the dye out.

Oddly, K-1 sells for about the same price as ORD depending on the station and season. It's another way people get around the red dye.

Some states allow Farm trucks to run on ORD as those are registered as being tax exempt. States like Colorado, Texas, Florida and others allow for these exemptions to use at the pump filling Ag or timber use trucks with ORD fuel. The states don't want to do the paper work and refunds every quarter, so they allow those plated vehicles to just fill up.

Alabama still requires an exempt vehicle to fill up at the normal diesel pump, copy of receipts and each quarter refunds the Ag trucks and machinery, Marine commercial fishing boats, etc $0.27 per gallon.

Tennessee is strange. They put the tax on the dyed diesel fuel at the pump. You pay the tax regardless. Then you send in your receipts for the tax refund. So, regardless if it's dyed or not, those without the exemption can't claim the rebate on those vehicles.

Many states allow the farm trucks to drive to the station to fill up and return to the farms with dyed red ORD.

Even tough we are in a forum here, it's best to consult what laws and rules apply to your state and how to fill up those machines or trucks.

In the summer, one can blend into the diesel good ol' vegetable oil. It's about $2.15/gal. No power lose nor fuel economy lose. Depending on the diesel engine, blending can be 50/50 to 80/20 of diesel to veg oil. So, the blending is way cheaper than ORD with red dye. Some Ag coops sell VO diesel fuel blends already. VO = Veggie oil. It's considered ORD to a degree, with no red dye.

California reported clogging up his injectors and hard starts with bio diesel. His experience is enough for me to stay away from it. Saying that if I find any old CLEAN engine oil sitting around I will dump it in with a full tank of fuel to get rid of it.

Weird about Tennessee. What's the point to the dye at that point?

 

[bdhsfz6]

Some states allow Farm trucks to run on ORD as those are registered as being tax exempt. States like Colorado, Texas, Florida and others allow for these exemptions to use at the pump filling Ag or timber use trucks with ORD fuel. The states don't want to do the paper work and refunds every quarter, so they allow those plated vehicles to just fill up.

Alabama still requires an exempt vehicle to fill up at the normal diesel pump, copy of receipts and each quarter refunds the Ag trucks and machinery, Marine commercial fishing boats, etc $0.27 per gallon.

Tennessee is strange. They put the tax on the dyed diesel fuel at the pump. You pay the tax regardless. Then you send in your receipts for the tax refund. So, regardless if it's dyed or not, those without the exemption can't claim the rebate on those vehicles.

Many states allow the farm trucks to drive to the station to fill up and return to the farms with dyed red ORD.

Even tough we are in a forum here, it's best to consult what laws and rules apply to your state and how to fill up those machines or trucks.

A few years back, I remember reading in one of my father in law's farm journals about a farmer who was cited for using ORD in his tractor on a public road. It's frequently done in my home state of PA. to access remote fields. My father in law was quite concerned since he plants remote fields, some of which are 25 miles from the farm. Anyone hear of a similar occurrence? Hopefully, this was a rare incident

 

[ponytug]

California reported clogging up his injectors and hard starts with bio diesel. His experience is enough for me to stay away from it. Saying that if I find any old CLEAN engine oil sitting around I will dump it in with a full tank of fuel to get rid of it.

Weird about Tennessee. What's the point to the dye at that point?

Yes, biodiesel is much less stable than regular diesel, and it is a much better substrate for growing bugs than regular diesel. My two cents is to use it promptly, and buy from a reliable supplier, as there are many ways to make biodiesel badly. Plus, you can have just plain poorly made biodiesel with lots of contaminants. Making good biodiesel requires attention to detail and great process chemistry setup. Many of the home brew recipes are never going to make great fuel, and many of them result in a water saturated fuel that is going to be trouble unless it is used very quickly. There was even someone around here that had worked out that her old Benz ran perfectly well on canola oil from Costco. No idea how long she ran it, but it was a few years as I saw her a couple of times with it.

Locally, BP has one station that offers a couple of biodiesel blends; B100, B15, and I think B2.

I have to admit that I used to work on renewable fuels, but I don't run biodiesel; my machines can sit around for far too long, and I am not interested in stripping any of them down to clean out any slime that might be impairing function.

All the best,

Peter

 

[bmaverick]

California reported clogging up his injectors and hard starts with bio diesel. His experience is enough for me to stay away from it. Saying that if I find any old CLEAN engine oil sitting around I will dump it in with a full tank of fuel to get rid of it.

Weird about Tennessee. What's the point to the dye at that point?

I would say using 'used' oils would cause problems in the fuel system for bio-diesel. Like the stuff out of cooking fryers. VO is virgin and fresh, never used, straight out of the bottle.

A few years back, I remember reading in one of my father in law's farm journals about a farmer who was cited for using ORD in his tractor on a public road. It's frequently done in my home state of PA. to access remote fields. My father in law was quite concerned since he plants remote fields, some of which are 25 miles from the farm. Anyone hear of a similar occurrence? Hopefully, this was a rare incident

That could be fought in a court of law. The farmer would of won. Even without an exempt status, tractors are not VIN nor plated in our country in any state. HOWEVER, there will come a day that electric would be pushed so hard, that registering an Off-Road machine that seldom uses the highway is coming.

 

[clemsonfor]

A few years back, I remember reading in one of my father in law's farm journals about a farmer who was cited for using ORD in his tractor on a public road. It's frequently done in my home state of PA. to access remote fields. My father in law was quite concerned since he plants remote fields, some of which are 25 miles from the farm. Anyone hear of a similar occurrence? Hopefully, this was a rare incident

NEVER and everyone drives tractors on the road here!! I went to an Agricultural Land Grant college. Had lots of friends and people I knew and went to class with there that grew up on family farms. Never heard that ever mentioned.

 

[ponytug]

I would say using 'used' oils would cause problems in the fuel system for bio-diesel. Like the stuff out of cooking fryers. VO is virgin and fresh, never used, straight out of the bottle...

Virgin oils certainly simplify making the fuel.

TL;DR it is more how you make biodiesel, rather than what you make it from.

It isn't so much whether the oil is fresh or not, though that causes changes in the chemistry, the big deal is whether the biodiesel is made old style via saponification (I.e. soap making, making free fatty acids with lye) and esterification (making the ethyl ester of those free fatty acids, i.e. Biodiesel), or whether it is a direct transesterification. The former process tends to leave water, and base (alkali) in your biodiesel, which isn't great, and helps feed the algae and bacteria that end up clogging injectors, as well as corroding injectors from the alkali salts. Transesterification requires tighter process control and makes a cleaner fuel, but the resulting biodiesel is still a superior food source for microbes.

There are relatively minor changes in the fuel that come from shifting from canola to soy to corn to coconut, that mainly relate to cloud point/gelling and long term storage issues (the faster oxidation of unsaturated fatty acids to varnishes compared to saturated fatty acids), which is the gumming from the oxidation of the unsaturated fatty acids. Basically, this is reason why you don't want to leave biodiesel in a tank or a tractor for any length of time.

All the best,

Peter

 

[bmaverick]

Virgin oils certainly simplify making the fuel.

TL;DR it is more how you make biodiesel, rather than what you make it from.

It isn't so much whether the oil is fresh or not, though that causes changes in the chemistry, the big deal is whether the biodiesel is made old style via saponification (I.e. soap making, making free fatty acids with lye) and esterification (making the ethyl ester of those free fatty acids, i.e. Biodiesel), or whether it is a direct transesterification. The former process tends to leave water, and base (alkali) in your biodiesel, which isn't great, and helps feed the algae and bacteria that end up clogging injectors, as well as corroding injectors from the alkali salts. Transesterification requires tighter process control and makes a cleaner fuel, but the resulting biodiesel is still a superior food source for microbes.

There are relatively minor changes in the fuel that come from shifting from canola to soy to corn to coconut, that mainly relate to cloud point/gelling and long term storage issues (the faster oxidation of unsaturated fatty acids to varnishes compared to saturated fatty acids), which is the gumming from the oxidation of the unsaturated fatty acids. Basically, this is reason why you don't want to leave biodiesel in a tank or a tractor for any length of time.

All the best,

Peter

Peter, that is all good info. I stick with the VO because the coconut and soy are troubling to run in a diesel engine for a long term.

VO itself are highly refined and filtered to create clear, relatively neutral-tasting oils to be used for cooking, frying, and baking. For a majority of VO, they are light weight oils, thus ideal for blending with diesel. Most VO is made up of soy, corn, sunflower, safflower and canola oils.

Really, all the bad cooking oils one should not eat, are the ideal types to use with diesel. All the good healthy oils should not be used with diesel.

There are some fruit based oils that I stay away from because of the coconut, olive and palm that are heavy and the fat content is too much. (the healthy ones to consume.)

There are only a few nut and seed oil that are viable. Peanut oil is the most popular.

Pure Wesson VO is 100% soy. It's highly refined. Bad for humans, good for engines. LOL

These links are a start for anyone seeking alternatives to high price diesel fuel. The purpose is to blend or cutting the VO to dilute it as the VO plant based oils are high in viscosity. Getting the VO to diesel ratio blended allows the vegetable oil to properly atomize with the fuel. This method in general terms is called cosolvent blending of fuels.

Good help and blending ratio charts

Blending vegetable oil with solvents - Biopowered

Blended Biofuels Diesel

biopowered.co.uk

This link also talks about how to take regular gasoline add VO as a blend to make it work like diesel. I've not tried this. Seems to be frequently done in eastern Europe. Mainly I stick to the diesel and VO blending.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_vegetable_oils#Oils_used_for_biofuel

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vegetable_oil_fuel#Availability

 

[ponytug]

Diesel ran his first engines on peanut oil.

I think that it is a testament to people's creativity when it comes to making new fuels. I have always wanted to see one of the old WWII Swedish trucks that ran on wood fired gasifiers with cyclone filters to remove the ash. When your engine will run on 40 octane or so, like the original VW engines, there are lots of options...

I do think that there is a real trade off in using some of the alternatives as they may not have the fuel properties that your engine needs for longevity (e.g. lubricity, cetacean level, EDIT: "cetane level", detergents, and algacidal additives). My $0.02 is do your homework on both the fuel and your particular engine and understand what you are getting into. Not every engine has been built in a way to be tolerant of a wide(r) spectrum of fuels, but many have.

All the best,

Peter