I try to buy clean fuel and keep it clean until used. Almost everything I own from lawn tractors to trucks have redundant filter/seperators added to factory provisions. When I say "ALMOST",the factory filter is good enough on a few things. An example is 6.0L Ford diesels that have an exellent filter/seperator. On the other hand,7.3s pull fuel from tank and passes it through lift pump then send's it to filter before going to injector pump. Another example of inferior filteration/seperation is pre-2004 Dodge Cummins that do the same as 7.3 Ford. Both these trucks experience high number of lift and injector pump failures. Here's why and how to control failures. Unfiltered fuel is continously going through lift pump until it finnaly wears out and fails. New lift get's installed and truck usually return's to normal,,,,,,,for a short period then the injector pump $$$$$ fails. Why? Because as lift weaken's,injector pump starve's for lubercation and wear's out. The answer? A filter/seperator BETWEEN tank and lift. I highly reccomend Rancor's line of products. You can run it through Mr Funnel 3 times and still not fix it. Why? Micron size. If your truck or tractor is set up like those,put a quility after market filter on it and save headaches. One other piece of advice. Unless your brother-in-law own's the station AND you trust your brother-in-law,never buy from mom and pop stations. Ever wonder why a busy station suddenly closes and sit's vacant despite being in a great location? Not neccessarly small stations,but more often than not large stations are Shell around here. Other than Shell,most large stations are corparate owned which you will shortly see make's a difference. A diesel will run on some poor excuses for fuel so shady operators of hazardous waste disposal pick up various solvents from garages,mfgring plants,body shops and such then dilute diesel fuel with it. People flock to 1 or 2 penny saveings on fuel. Back to closed stations. Occasionally,a trail of damaged engines lead back to the station selling that crap and lawsuits are filed. Knowing bankruptcy,butt kickings and criminal charges can't be far behind,pssssst owner disappears. To be fair to hard working people,90% of those bad stations around here were run by folks who usually have something cooking in living quarters at back that stinks and always stare wide eyed and have little to say in the way of weather and small talk.
