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Use Automatic Transmission Fluid in fuel tank to clean injectors?

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atf injectors
62K views 39 replies 16 participants last post by  97powerstroke turbo 
#1 · (Edited)
A friend of mine told me to dump ATF in my fuel tank to clean the injectors and I was wondering if this was a good idea or not. I have a 2005 Powertroke 6.0. My friend says I need to run the tank down to about 1/4 full then dump about 2 gallons of ATF in the fuel tank. Run the truck for a couple minutes to get the ATF to the injectors and shut the truck off for the night thus letting the ATF "soak" in the injectors. When I start the truck up the next day it will sputter and smoke like crazy but after a while will run like a champ. I would not say I have any injectors problems right now. The truck is running and sounds fine but does have some hard starting issues in the morning and worse if I did not plug it in over night. Just got a new hpop, oil cooler, egr cooler. Read the stickies and searched and could not find anything on this. Thank you
 
#2 ·
There's lots of threads about this, not stickies. It works ok but sounds like you need to address issues really.
Possibly bad battery(ies), weak FICM, injector stiction resulting from oil that is too thick.
 
#3 ·
I have done this to lube the injectors. The ultra low sulfer diesel does not have the lubricating properties that the old diesel did. Some put atf and others others use 2 cycle oil. Someone will chime in, but i thought it was more of lubrication issue than a cleaner.

Gb
 
#5 ·
thank you for the reply, it reminded me of more things. Just had the FICM rebuilt and batteries are brand new. Oil change last week using conventional 15w40. Maybe I should have went with synthetic as I have read it helps start up in the cold? But does it help that much really? thanks again for your reply ..
 
#8 ·
Yes the T6 will help with starting. Noticed a huge difference when I switched. I also run 16 oz of 2 stroke every other tank. Seems to help with starting.....
 
#9 ·
hmmmm... I inherited this truck from my girlfriends family... it is hard to ask about truck maintanence without being sent straight to the dog house ...do not pass go, collect 200 dollars.... I do not think they maintained the truck very well AT ALL. That is about all I am able to say about the frequency of oil changes.
 
#11 ·
The best injector lubricant and cleaner is biodiesel. If you have it available where you are just a B5 is way better than anything else you can buy and a B20 quiets the injectors down so much you wouldn't believe it.
 
#29 ·
Keep in mind, most manufacturer's consider the use of anything more than B5 is a warranty voiding event. (Ford included, by the way, according to my paperwork.) I live 60 miles south of Portland, Oregon...where biodiesel is all they can sell. In my '86 VW diesel, I lose 5 mpg's. Worse yet, I lose a lot of power in an already gutless car. I won't even run the crap in my 6.0. I get 18-20 with the winter blend straight diesel available where I live. I tested one tank I bought up in Portland several months ago...and never again. It was B20, it idled okay, but you could feel the drop in power and I lost 4.2 mpg's. I was at the VW dealer up in Portland a couple weeks ago getting a part, and the salesman/vultures came over wanting my '86 in trade. (It's mint condition even at 336,000 miles!) They were showing me the new Tdi diesel.....it was full of fuel. Said they fill them all up. I pointed out they just voided the warranty on every diesel on the lot. Shop guy came out and confirmed that to the sales department. Told them no manufacturer will honor a warranty is the consumer puts more than B5 in it. (And they have no choice in some places, like Portland!) Keep in mind in a 6.0, the engine is sensitive to fuel pressures. Bio is thicker. Blue spring update, running 67 psi? Put in B20, you'll probably have 80 psi. Real quiet injectors.....but what's gonna blow from the extreme pressure? The injector O-rings? Damage the injectors? No way I'll play that experiment.....except on my VW, with the $25 injectors I can swap out in 20 minutes!
 
#12 ·
I put some used t6 in. Didn't notice a difference I put some plain atf in and it sounded "smoother"
 
#13 ·
For what it's worth the ATF is a mild detergent and will help to clean your injectors a tad but 2 gallons is ridiculous and you don't need to let the injectors "soak" just add some ATF to your tank when you fill up and run through the tank with normal driving. The soaking advice sounded like it came from a cummins owner and if that doesn't work then extend your tow mirrors!

Todd
 
#14 ·
You don't need to put it in your tank, unless you want to clean the inside of your tank and fuel lines......and be ready to change the filters if your tank is nasty.

Using ATF is an old school thing from the days of mechanical injection pumps and injectors. (Such as the '86 VW diesel I also have, a Bosch system....NO electronics.....the way it should be, if we didn't have the EPA!) The technique was, and still is, to fill the fuel filter with ATF when changing it. It's a strong detergent, and doing this every filter change really cleans the inside of the mechanical pumps and injectors quite well. I have no idea how it would affect the newer systems such as our Powerstrokes......filling the secondary filter housing is all that would be needed. I can't see any harm coming from it. Diesel and ATF are both oils, the ATF is just loaded with cleaning agents and additives. I do know on Bosch mechanical injectors, it does in fact help clean the nozzles to correct spray patterns affected by carbon, and on Bosch injection pumps it can temporarily stop a shaft seal thats leaking, as it softens the seals.
 
#15 ·
Like what Rdesz said, the ATF as far as I know was for the older mechanical pumps and mechanical injectors. It would help condition and clean the seals throughout the pump and was the easiest most effective way to do it.

I don't konw so much now about the newer systems.

As for your problem, it sounds more like a bit of stiction on startup. I had the same problem. Warm sunny weather, not an issue.
Colder, (fall to winter) it would start up with 1 cylinder not quite firing from what I could tell and would kick in shortly after. When it was really cold out, 2 cylinders weren't going and would take about 20 seconds to get firing.

I did a swap to T6 Rotell 5w40. And drove it for about a week. It seemed a bit quieter, and started a bit better, but still had some stiction when not plugged in.

After that week, I added in some 2 cycle motor oil (to try it out) to the fuel tank, and added in the recommended dose of archoil.

I've been as low as -10 Celsius and it has no issues starting, no stiction and fires up as good as you could hope for any diesel of it's era.

I would highly recommend going that route. The archoil seems to be the best reviewed for the price, with only Rev-X being more common but pricier.

Go with that, do the fuel filters, and oil change, and then start looking to do some of the update parts such as blue spring.

Cheers.
 
#18 ·
That was 15-20 years before I was born - LOL!

For what its worth I have a few friends with diesels who run ATF religiously and no issues ever, one with 275K miles on a 7.3L :) - BUT not 2 gallons at a time and NEVER let the injectors "soak" - that was comical to read LOL!!!
 
#17 ·
I ran a qt of Mercon V through my fuel every fill-up for years. I know for a fact that I have had low fuel pressure situations multipe times and have yet to have any injector failures at 87,000 miles.

That all ended when I stopped working at the Ford dealer about a year ago meaning that my endless supply stopped... Now I run what ever that I can get my hands on: ATF, 2 Stroke Oil, motorcraft cetane booster or what ever is available.

I would not run 2 gallons through it but a qt per tank would be fine. The sulfer in the fuel acted as a lubricant but with with Ultra Low you need to increase the lubricity of the fuel.
 
#19 ·
I have use about 8dl to 160l fill up 2 stroke oil for an year now. Today i did change my fuel filters and didnt find any marks of oil what so ever so i can use it in future knowing that it wount do any harm to my filters... Then again i had to torn appart the HFCM unit cause it had so much rust or sand debrees in it.. And i know that those are not from my fuel tank what is plastic tank. I did drop the tank last sumer when i install the webasto heater pick up tube to the tank device. And there was no debrees in tank at all.
And that was kind of wierd and only place i can think the rust scale or sandy soot is from the drain plug what was badly rusted.. but now evrything is cleaned and i replace the drain plug to updated version.
O and i check the fuel lines from pump as far i could see with endoscope and no corrosion there.
I hope i dont see that much debrees next time i change my filters. Last time was about one year ago and 15000 miles ago.


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#20 ·
Guy that does some work for me was a Ford diesel tech for 8 years. Says he ran his 7.3 for 50k miles on 100% used and filtered atf in his tank because he got.it from the dealer. And then another 50k half and half
 
#21 ·
I think that guy may suffer from, the clinical term, a severe case of full of sh!tness - I am not sure ATF has good enough ignition qualities to run a motor and second I cant imagine a tech running that through his tank with no fuel.
 
#24 ·
Well if u think it wasnt maintained then u know what ur fighting. Idk what to tell u bit Idk if 2atroke oil is good for our injectors
 
#27 ·
Yea but they have the same system as it requires oil and fuel so still basic idea. It's like dicks and dildos they both made to please right?
 
#28 ·
Comparing the old mechanical injectors....to a 7.3....to our 6.0........yes, ATF will run an engine, and it will run well. BUT.....our newer injectors are more finicky, and I'd hate to test the theory. Tolerances are closer, requirements are different, and they are simply too expensive to test with various things. My '86 VW Golf diesel injectors, compared to my 6.0 Powerstroke......is like comparing the Wright Bros invention to the space shuttle. Not even close, same rules don't apply.
 
#30 ·
Only a knucklehead (not the Harley). Would do a comparison of mechanical to electronic injectors. I mean really it basic. In mechanical motors there less to go wrong a monkey can fix it and it cheap to fix.

Price idi parts that every diesel needs to a engine that controlled by electronics. It way cheaper.

I ran motor oil in a 6.2 suburban I had 1 quart to every tank. It never batted a eye . Try that on a newer truck and u might be picking up the cell to make a call
 
#31 ·
Losing 5mpgs in the vw may not be that bad if u gained power as it probably gets 40+. But to lose power and mileage would frustrate me to no end since they have what 100 horses at the flywheel?
 
#32 ·
My '86 VW Gold Diesel is a naturally aspirated, 52 horsepower slug that will cruise at 65 with one person and get 51.2 mpg doing so. The turbo version was like 65 or 70 horsepower. B20 was a HUGE disaster on that little motor. I was still in the mid 40's on mpg, but you can't lose any power on that engine and consider it drivable. The one hill on the freeway that would normally slow it down to 60, was a 47 mph climb with B20. Biodiesel basically has less power in it, is thicker in consistency, will gel faster, and they sell it for .20 a gallon more than straight diesel! My egt's were quite a bit less with it, but that would be expected. It does tend to clean fuel tanks....if you have a dirty one, it'll plug your filters up real fast. If I could gain fuel mileage with B20, even with the lower power, I might use it in the VW for the long trips. But you get screwed on the price, the economy and the power. For the 6.0, I won't let the stuff near it. The VW, who cares. Mechanical injection, cheap and easy to replace stuff.
 
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