I am changing out my home heating and wonder if I can run the remaining furnace oil in my diesel truck.

I heard of a person doing this and the fuel system repair bill was enormous.

I know the furnace oil is much more refined and heard it will not provide the lubrication for the pump and injectors.

Is this so?

Cheers

Peter

ps; went out first round last weekend by 0.0017 at the stripe, 9.904 on a 9.90 dial

 

Nothing wrong with burning furnace oil except I think it would probably be coloured and thats a no no as far as the DOT is concernd. Just dont get caught....

 

No practical difference except as noted, no road tax paid.

 

If you're worried about it you could just blend it with normal diesel at a ratio that you're comfortable with.

Just to confirm what we're talking about here though--it's #2 heating oil right? If it's kerosene instead, then that's different and you wouldn't want to run that by itself (ie, not mixing with diesel).

Mike

 

I was under the impression:
1. Heating oil was NOT as refined a current diesel... has much more sulfur which kills a catalytic. My 96 has a cat so I won't run heating oil.

2. no cat... well then ok for summer, but has no cetane for winter starting.

 

High sulphur wa s what diesel used to have, it lubricated the fuel system. wont effect a cat especially one from 96 when diesel wqas still diesel. Dont believe they even make high sulphur diesel in the us any more due to nothing burns it any more. If it is red fuel then as stated before it is non taxed and illegl for road use.

 

True they don't make high sulfur diesel.
according to EPA
heating oil can be sold with as high as ASTM accepted limiit of 5000ppm sulfur
heating oil is/was typically 2000-2500ppm, soon to be mandated to low sulfur here in new england.
Old diesel was the same...
low sulfur diesel is 500ppm ( was started in the 90's) and was what was available for "on road" sale/use by 96 the first year of dodge diesel catalytic.
ultra low sulfur is now (since 2006) under 15ppm

I was told sulfur is not good for catalytic's and should be avoided???

diesel 2000-2500ppm is made but currently for OFF road only.

 

last time i chatted with my off road fuel supplier back in 2009 he said they were phasing out all high sulphur diesl since it was a pita to keep cross contamination and the extra storage issues between the 2. If i remember correctly lower sulphur diesel did not hit the pumps till like the mis 2000's, so anyhting made before then was expected to be exsposed to it. Besides the only diesels i knew of with converters in the 90's were possibly cali trucks. you sure its not a resinator instead of a cat. none of my 2nd gen trucks had cats

 

From 1996 chrysler factory service manual:
Section 11 -exhaust
sentence 2 reads
"The diesel engine exhaust system consists of an engine exhaust manifold, turbocharger, exhaust pipe, catalytic converter, extension pipe if needed, muffler, and exhaust tailpipe.(fig 2)"

I was told that 96 was the first year for ram/cummins catalytic. What happened years after that I have no idea.

 

Hmm does the owners manual say anything about sulphur hurting the cat?

 

Only a very few 94's built before 1/1/1994 did not have cats. Starting with production 1/1/1994 all the way through the end of 12 valve production, ALL factory CTDs got a kitty. The funny thing is, when the 24V hit, they dropped the cat because it passed without one.......

Mine ran all kinds of high sulfur fuel, never hurt the kitty before she fell off at 165K......

 

HHO is essentially the same as diesel. In fact usually the price of diesel will go up in the fall as much of the production goes over to HHO.
Since you said you are changing out that means that some or all of the fuel is old and the condition of the tank could also be suspect.
Be prepared to change out a filter and if you think there might be some algae growth add a can of fuel treatment.
Also usually HHO isn't dyed since it isn't meant for vehicles that would be on or off road. The dye is cheap but if they don't have a cause to be concerned they won't mandate its addition.

 

The railroads are still allowed to use high sulfur diesel until 2015.

 

Something I never knew about ULSD> http://www.aem.org/AllDocuments/AEM/...n_07-03-13.pdf

 

Still no word if we're talking heating oil, or kerosene. Kerosene would fit more with the description of the OP's friend that suffered fuel system damage.