I have been adding ATF to my fuel as advised by many mechanics for a couple months now and an interesting point was brought to my attention by my girlfriend. If the ATF is red and it mixes with the diesel won't the diesel be red and possibly cost me pretty big if I get checked by a trooper? Just a thought, any opinions?

dont add atf to fuel. it does not have the lubrication properties that your injectors and vp44 need. use ANY fuel additive at the autopart stores for diesel. anything but atf

if they dip the tank, it will look red. they also do a chemical analysis for the traces of the red dye. you'll come out alright when the test results dont show the dye.

You would have to add a lot of ATF to dye all of that fuel.

But the real concern is adding ATF to your fuel. Dont do it. This is old school thinking and it was acceptable in older diesel engines. But, now a days, diesel engines are different, and ATF is different. The injector pump tolerances are very tight and the additives in modern day ATF will damage your injector pump in short order and maybe injectors as well. ATF is NOT designed to burn.

You are much better off adding a proper fuel additive (Howes Lubricator, Power Service etc.) and if you feel you still need more lube, use a TCW3 2 cycle oil (which is meant to burn).

Do a search on ATF and you will have a good deal of reading to do.

thanks for the information I was just thinking about it. I will do some checking on fuel additives

I burn about 20 gallons of waste motor oil to 60 gallons of fuel. The oil turns it black. I also run 1 gallon of 2 stroke per 30 gallons of diesel. If I think I am going to go show out, I put 3 gallons of 2 stroke in to 28/29 gallons of diesel. It does make a nice difference. I also burn ATF, Hydraulic oil. I don't like using used atf fluid because of all the copper &metal particles in it. The used motor oil is the way to go. I have some friends running it 50/50, & we all have been using it for several years now, with ZERO problems. It actually quietens the engines down ever so slightly.

Do not run todays ATF in todays diesel. It is bad for it. Dr. Evil is correct.

Yes, there's much purer fuel requirements for the HPCR!

Bighead, are you saying you have friends that run 17 gal used oil and 17 gal of diesel (34gal tank)? Wouldn't that greatly reduce the btu's in the diesel? ie water it down quite a bit.

I have been adding ATF to my fuel as advised by many mechanics for a couple months now

Find a new mechanic!

Find a new mechanic!Ask him if he recommends putting diesel fuel in your tranny as well.

You use to be able to use AFT to clean up injectors and it did so very well until around the mid 1980's. But now that they add in a lot of other things into ATF it is a big no no and will screw up HPRC injectors.

I have been adding ATF to my fuel as advised by many mechanics for a couple months now

thanks for the information I was just thinking about it. I will do some checking on fuel additives.

So which is it? You've been adding for a couple months, or you were just thinking about it?

I burn about 20 gallons of waste motor oil to 60 gallons of fuel. The oil turns it black. I also run 1 gallon of 2 stroke per 30 gallons of diesel. If I think I am going to go show out, I put 3 gallons of 2 stroke in to 28/29 gallons of diesel. It does make a nice difference. I also burn ATF, Hydraulic oil. I don't like using used atf fluid because of all the copper &metal particles in it. The used motor oil is the way to go. I have some friends running it 50/50, & we all have been using it for several years now, with ZERO problems. It actually quietens the engines down ever so slightly.

I burn 1200 gal a year wasteoil in my reznor wasteoil heater in my 8000 sq shop.

The used motor oil is the way to go. I have some friends running it 50/50, & we all have been using it for several years now, with ZERO problems. It actually quietens the engines down ever so slightly.

You run it 50/50!?!?
That seems like quite a bit of oil. You truck must POUR smoke when you lay on the throttle...

Waste oil in diesels is a VERY common thing. It burns just fine and may have more energy than fuel. No, it does not smoke heavily. I ran a lot in my 1st gen, my Isuzu NPR and my Perkins. I've even run my '93 on straight oil with no fuel. Ran just fine. And the best mileage I ever got with my '81 Mercedes was on waste oil.

I don't run it in my 3rd gen, but it is commonly done with many engines. Mercedes used to even give guidelines on how much oil you could safely run. Many fishing boat owners just drain their engine oil into the fuel tank. I was almost out of fuel one night and could not find a station, so I went to a store and bought a bunch of cheap motor oil. Dumped it in and drove on home. No harm done.

It cracks me up that so many people think the sky is falling when they hear about burning waste oil in diesel engines.


John

John, what do you think about running oil (new or used) through HPCRs?

Conventional wisdom says it's bad for the injectors, but I wonder if there's anecdotal evidence to the contrary...

XLR8R,

I wouldn't be worried about running new oil to some percentage in the Common Rail. But new oil is more expensive than fuel and has no advantage over fuel except, maybe lubricity. And it's just not convenient. I like the 2 stroke additive idea, but I haven't found a good source and convenient way to measure it, or have reason to think it's worth the trouble even though it certainly would lube better. It just has to be better than straight fuel and if we start to see pump failures with the new fuel I'm in. I've got over 100,000 miles on my '04 now and drive a lot through the mountains at odd hours, drive to work 100 miles away, and tow my tractor. I'm usually "on a mission" and just want to get there simply and easily.

My waste oil sources have dried up and I'm a little more careful with the Common Rail than with the old injection pumps. Plus the hassle of obtaining, storing and prefiltering the old stuff is more trouble than it's worth to me in this busy world. I used to live on my boat and had people saving oil for me. It was fun, and since I love diesels and have worked on many of them and studied them over the years, it was worth it. So, I don't run it now in the Dodge. If I was still on the boat or still driving a 1st gen, I would probably be running it.

A lot of people say it's bad for this or bad for that and I invite them to show some evidence. If they have something I'm ready to listen. But simple speculation and no experience don't add up to much. If we listened to every naysayer we'd still be living in caves. Diesel engines invite experimentation. And what fun is life if you can't experiment a little?

My experiments have demonstrated to me that my engines run just fine on off-road and on-road fuel, used engine oil, new engine oil (up to 100%), very old heating oil, and bio in various percentages. All with little or no evidence of what was running, and no damage, in various vehicles.


John

It'd be great to "recycle" all of our used hydrocarbons stored out at the shop, but I'd be a lot more comfortable burning them in an older-style mechanical injection diesel, like you'd find in a tractor or genset.

There seems to be such an emphasis placed on clean fuel down to the micron level, I guess proper filtering would be fine for a HPCR's injector tips?

I can't prove it one way or the other, but it seems like the CP3 would be more affected than the injectors in a common rail system. In the older injectors with the mechanical injection pump, if a clog occurs the tip is simply blown off. No clog can stop the piston pump's positive displacement. In the electronic injector it seems that a higher viscosity fluid would just cause a lower amount of injection since the injectors are not positive displacement. And wear, if it occured, would just "hone" the injectors and make them produce more power. I guess big enough debris could stick the electronic ones but that's what the filter is for. The CP3 seems like the place where contaminants would do the harm. Stuff like hard facing from gear teeth.

It would be nice to simply "re-cycle" all old oil by running it through and getting a little power from it while not having to use more fuel to haul it away. I'm soon going to install a fuel oil hydronic boiler on a radiant heating system in my home. Perfect candidate for old oil or old fuel. Too bad I don't own some kind of oil change business. [laugh] Then every morning my warm feet would thank the 3000 mile oil change recommendations that the oil companies make.


John

I was told by my mechainc :o that one to two drops of fingernail polish [duhhh] remover will increase MPG drstically [dummy] and make the engine last 100,000 miles. [director]

dont add atf to fuel. it does not have the lubrication properties that your injectors and vp44 need. use ANY fuel additive at the autopart stores for diesel. anything but atf

if they dip the tank, it will look red. they also do a chemical analysis for the traces of the red dye. you'll come out alright when the test results dont show the dye.

The dye used in atf is the same as off-road diesel.............They do not do any testing,if it is red you are done[laugh]

Bob

Hmm, I've got some pretty blue dye, I wonder what they would say of they dipped out Blue diesel......................

Dump in enough used motor oil with the ATF and it is black dirty looking fuel. I have thought the same thing, as that is how I got rid of my ATF when I ran my 12 valve.

I would be more concerned with the injectors than the CP3. The injectors are having erosion problems, not in the tips, but in the check ball. That is where the hard starts/no starts come from.