Clogged D2 fuel filter from/DISGUSTING FUEL BOWL PIX

[erbilabuc]

So when I first started this whole alternative fuels thing some guy that I met told me he was blending diesel with WMO and that he didnt see a problem with doing it with VO. Well I did it once and I did 10 gallons of VO to 5 gallons of diesel. Oh my god Im glad I chose to just convert my truck. As you can see from the pictures the water,oil and whatever else is in there had seperated out of the diesel inside the fuel bowl and just settled and settled and then settled some more. Yesterday as I was driving to work my truck just died. I dont have the lowest mileage truck but it does run perfectly. Luckily I was 5 miles from home (at work) and called GEICO. 20 minutes later my truck was home. I got home to work on it and first thing I did was crack fuel lines at the heads to make sure there was diesel.... there wasnt any. Since I had only been running diesel I opened the fuel bowl to make sure there was fuel and there wasn't (so I thought). I didn't do anything except go to sleep and decide to work on it this morning. Since it had same symptoms as a clogged veggie fuel filter I figured that had to be it. I took off the filter and it was like cold chicken soup in there. I laughed, cried and then thanked Allah the almighty that I had an extra fuel filter. I cleaned the bowl out by syphoning it out with a clear tube since my drain valve was also clogged with this stuff. I disconnected the heater and just scrubbed it out and dried it. The entire fuel bowl was full with this chicken soup stuff.
Can someone tell me what the ring of stuff around the fuel filter is?

[ridiculously_necessary]

that looks like either PHO or extreemly emulsified water and VO.

the ring looks like cold pho or wax crystals. probably wax crystals from the cool oil. imagine that crap getting into your motor on startup.

D2 will thin VO but generally not mix well. what likely happend is the heavy vo/pho sunk to the bottom of your fuel tank, and thats what the fuel pickup sucked up first. it was warm enough to run by the time it made it to your bowl, then it cooled off. eventually you had enough in there that it clogged the filter.

thanks a ton for posting this. this is a great thread for those thinking of mixing, or those that have a kit that feeds vo to the fuel bowl. (like the one the PO put on mine)

heat that crap up and see if it melts, then do a hot pan test. if no crackeling, or minimal crackeling then its probably just pho.

my advise, aside from your conclusions on mixing and having to clean the bowl, fill the clean bowl with seafoam and the new filter, run the truck around the block a couple of times. let it sit overnight to soak the injectors. run it a few miles the next day to flush the sea foam, then change the oil. Clay has a pretty pic of his buddys crankcase, he mixed vo with D2.

if i had to take a shot in the dark, can'twinforlosing was the guy that told you this?

[erbilabuc]

no the guy that told me this was a local SOCAL person that I havent spoken to in a few months. I couldnt believe how much gunk was at the bottom of the fuel bowl. It was a good 1-2" inches of the stuff. Some of it wasnt veggie oil related but 98% of it was.

[vegginpsd]

[QUOTE=ridiculously_necessary;if i had to take a shot in the dark, can'twinforlosing was the guy that told you this?[/QUOTE]

I thought the exact same thing.

[erbilabuc]

I consider myself very lucky that I was able to find this. I've had hard/rough/romp starts for past 3-4 months and I thought it was just the trucks age. Went out this morning to start the truck up and even though its 45 degrees outside it started up within 1 second like never before.

[vegginpsd]

45* sounds tropical right now.


Im plowing snow 6" at the moment, and the Cyberdyne digital thermometer on the truck says -01*!

WHY DO I LIVE HERE?
Tuesday night low temp will be -18* to -23*F!
Talk about an excersize in heat exchange.......

[ridiculously_necessary]

today was 40. wed or thurs nigt will be -X again.

glad to hear its running well again.

what are your plans from this point forward?

[erbilabuc]

well my veggie valve is stuck open but luckily I have diesel in the veggie tank until I get my wet oil situation under control. FPHE is up next and today I went to buy ball valves to block coolant flow to the veggie tank but couldnt find any at home depot.

[vegginpsd]

Get rid of the solenoid valves.

Source check valves from leon or Ebay. One less GC piece in the puzzle to get F'd up.

You will have succeeded when the tank, filter and co-pilot are the only GC hardwares left.

I would bet the goodies in your filter are the same thing that are causing the valves to malfunction.........

I have a GC valve on the regulated return routing return fuel for way over 100K. They are sound valves in design, but it would not take much to cause problems. Kinda tiny in them valves.

[ridiculously_necessary]

i would have to agree. im going with cv's. after everything i have read on solenoid valves it just makes more sense.