Why does my tractor have a fuel cooler?

[pmmully]

There are many reasons to cool the fuel. Due to the expansion of diesel fuel, you will lose about 10% power as the fuel heats up, basically because the expansion is not allowing as much pure fuel to enter the system. I have no fuel cooler on my Cummins 5.9 in my Shamrock boat, and you can feel it get a bit more sluggish in the summer versus the winter (also due to cooler air). Now keep in mind, this is a mechanical 12V engine. This is something you can check out in many places if you want to check this out for yourself. However, it is another failure point in an offshore boat. In a tractor, I would expect this to be plumbed in via a separate cooler, or from the radiator.

Many of the boats that have new electronic injection have the fuel cooled to control the performance. There may be other reasons like injectors as some have pointed out, but overall it goes back to the same basic principle... cooler fuel is better fuel.

Many manufactures actually use the fuel to keep the ECMs cool. In a boat, you have no fan over a set of radiators/coolers. So heat is always a concern as it is all dissipated via raw water cooling in heat exchangers.

 

[repete]

Fuel coolers are used on fire engines to keep the fuel from becoming too hot while pumping. The cooler is a heat exchanger that utilizes the discharge water from the pump to cool the fuel on its return trip to the tank.