New diesel fuel And Older Diesel Trucks

excelagator · Jul 1, 2007

I am curious what owners of older diesel trucks are going to do with the low sulfur diesel fuel. As far as I understand it the lower sulfur diesel fuel are not good on older diesels??

Dan

VistanTN · Jul 2, 2007

Not sure where you are getting your information, but ULS (ultra low sulphur) diesel, as required for '07's, is no different from LS (low sulphur) excpt for the sulphur content which adds nothing of value for the diesel performance. I've been running ULS in my '83 A-C 5020 for well over a year as well as my Mahindra 6500 -- neither of which requires it -- but all I have "lost" is some SO2 in the exhaust gases and some H2SO4 condesation in the pistons and exhaust manifold. Son in law is running ULS in his '04 Checvy and reports no change.

excelagator · Jul 2, 2007

Ever since I had JD I run offroad diesel and the dealer told me at delivery to run that and not the low sulfur diesel.

Dan

DieselPower · Jul 2, 2007

VistanTN said:
Not sure where you are getting your information, but ULS (ultra low sulphur) diesel, as required for '07's, is no different from LS (low sulphur) excpt for the sulphur content which adds nothing of value for the diesel performance. I've been running ULS in my '83 A-C 5020 for well over a year as well as my Mahindra 6500 -- neither of which requires it -- but all I have "lost" is some SO2 in the exhaust gases and some H2SO4 condesation in the pistons and exhaust manifold. Son in law is running ULS in his '04 Checvy and reports no change.

Actually by removing more aromatics from the fuel the energy content of the fuel has dropped on average from 2-5%. ULSD also has a higher solvency then the previous LSD did. This can cause fuel system leaks as your o-rings and fuel lines deteriorate. Most of the time all that is required is to replace the leaking seals or hoses with modern hoses made for LSD/ULSD fuel. Most of these have already been replaced as they started to leak when LSD came out. Lubricity of ULSD is also lower than that of the previous LSD. If your fuel distribution center is properly treating the fuel with additives this should not be a problem. One of the major problems that was discovered happed this last winter. The gel point of ULSD is quite a bit higher than LSD which caused some regional fuel problems. Some of New Yorks school districts actually had to close for 1-2 weeks this last winter because of all the fuel gelling problems.

DaddyRabbit · Jul 2, 2007

I immediately lost the 0 rings in my fuel separator on my 2K Ford Superduty. Had to go back w/ 0 rings that were impervious to this new ULSD fuel.

psj12 · Jul 2, 2007

In the performance of my job I have had the oportunity to run some Dyno test on large turbo charged diesels using foreign high sulphur fuel and US. Low Sulphur fuel I can attest that there is about an 8% power loss using the low sulphur fuel.
I have not done any tests on the new Ultra low sulphur fuel but from the above test I would assume that the power would be reduced somewhat from LS fuel.

Ford850 · Jul 2, 2007

DieselPower,
That's interesting about the gel point. My dealer told me to stay away from BioDiesel in the winter due to higher gel points. He said they received a truckload of large tractors from Case (WI) in Feb and could not get any of them started to unload them from the trailer due to the gel problem. He thought it was from the Biodiesel, but I wonder if it was due to the ULSF.

DieselPower · Jul 2, 2007

It's a good possibility that it was ULSD fuel. The fuel standards in the US are to say the least a little lacking. This low standard in fuel quality often leads to very different fuel from one location to the next. Fuel's gel point is very regional now.

ohmboy · Jul 2, 2007

FWIW I drive a 99 model Chevy 3500 everyday at work and it runs no more crappy than usual. I see our mechanic regularly and he hasn't mentioned any more fuel related problems than usual. We are not restricted as to where we fill our tanks so our fuel comes from a variety of sources.

D7E · Jul 3, 2007

I don't know what north american spec diesel was like in the past but bringing 1970's-80's british tractors over they definateley have less power and run differently ( Harsher knocking sound ) and more pump problems , sulphur or less lube ?