Lil Dog

ATF was an old "repair" for the older mechanically injected diesel engines like the Detroits and Caterpillars with cam operated injectors. Due to some fuel leaks and poor fuel quality in the day, this stuff would take off the tarnish on the old injectors. But with today's high pressure pumps and precision injectors, this stuff does more damage than good. Getting these deposits to form in the pintle and seats of the new small engine injectors and on top of that any abrasive wear is just money out the window. You may as well just put that $2 in a cup you were gonna use in ATF to save for injectors. The Pump, especially the VP44 that uses fuel for cooling doesn't need any "help" to wear out.

Big Troy

I have heard like Kenworth said about ATF being good, and on the advice of a good ol diesel mechanic of mine, I have been filling up my fuel filter when i change it, with ATF for about 2 years. This is the first time I have heard of it being bad. I have started running stanydene lubricity in it for about the past 6 months.

Seeing as how my truck has been down for about a month now, which I am stuck on ECM issues, but with this info, possible injectors?

Lil Dog--you say ATF can screw up you injectors?
could it happen all of a sudden? Or would i have warning?

WOW, great info on here.

Lil Dog

As was described earlier, the additives in the ATF were not meant to be burned and leave some deposits behind when they do. The tip of the injectors are exposed to the combustion and can retain these deposits.

Injectors seldom just all up and die. Its a progressive thing over time where they will start to loose pop off pressure or have poor spray patterns. Both cause more blueish smoke and reduced mileage. Also if they begin to hang up or stick, they will give you more rough idle and puffs of smoke on load. I had that in an 89 CTD I had and was hard to diagnose until I had all the injectors pulled and bench tested.

dozer12216

Or a quart of B100 biodiesel. It good additive or even B 02 will work. That 2% stuff at pump where avaliable.

nickg

I too am against running ATF... but an arguement can be made for burning it...

a vp cost approx 1000$ and 2-3hours of your time.

a tank of fuel costs me 100$, and the price is climbing every day

so 10 free tanks of ATF would be the same as 1000$ or 1 VP....

all things considered odds are pretty good you'd get a lot more than 10 tanks out of a VP,
downside is you'd always be wondering when it would fail, but it would be an interesting experiment

some thing to think about

KATOOM

I like your point nickg..........maybe because I've made similar analogy's as well. Spending far more on fuel lubrication additives than the cost of replacing a VP, over the life of the VP, just trying to make sure the VP doesn't fail, doesn't make sense. Now if it was common place to only get 20,000-30,000 miles out of a VP, then I'd say they're on to something.

HOHN

I wouldn't use ATF in the fuel for reasons already mentioned.