Printable View
I am still not convinced either way on demulsifying or mulsifyng. Is that how you spell that? I like the idea of demulsifying the water and it never getting to the engine. But does this actually happen with the additive? It's been explained to me and I just can't seem to decide!!!
Blake,
All is dependent on the amount of water. I use Fuel Power (foundation of Total Power) is capable of tying up it's equal in water. You can basically mix it at 1:1 with water and NOT detect the presence of water with water finding paste.
Free (demulsified) water is undoubtedly a bad thing. It just doesn't make sense to settle the water out, then shake it back up and then try to settle it in the filter. :rolleyes:
jcopeland has seen first hand how water can breed bacteria :eek:
The FPPF recommended treat ratio is 1000:1 or .128oz/gallon. I run 1.5x the recommended treat ratio, or .192 oz/gallon which comes out to just shy of 2oz/10 gallons filled. I generally just put in 4 oz or so per tank. Used regularly, the fuel system will stay fresh. There's really not much you can do about excessively large slugs of water, but if you practice good housekeeping, there will be far less chance of problems. In the event of a large slug of water, a guy could use Fuel Power which is VERY inexpensive, and highly concentrated.
John,
Let me know when your system is available. I'll be a buyer.
Regards,
Bob
TraceF,
I took a look in our Parker Cat. and found the fittings.(unfortunatly no prices) Our inst.tech. said they run about $6 each. I think they would run a little higher than that. They are made of 316 stainless steel. If you're still interested you can go to the Parker Hannifin site and look in the instrumentation section (CPI Fittings)
John,
Why do so many OEM recommend Stanadyne if it is bad for the system? I don't understand why the filter won't capture the water with the chemical in it. I will be running a test to find out. Both ways. One with total power and the other with Stanadyne. Or just use nothing and let the two filters get the water out, the media is supposed to not let waterpass.
I orginaly built a filter adaptor that would screw in the place of the OEM adaptor and used the CAT filter in it's place. After talking with John Kennedy about this he talked me into using my OEM and my CAT filter. If I was to get a large slug of water in my fuel I would not know It until it was too late. Which made sence to me. By the thanks for the help John.
I then made an adaptor that would work after the OEM filter using the CAT filter. I sent my fuel to the lab and had it checked before and after the before particle 4651 >2um the fuel after both filters was 7081 >2um which blew my mind. Then I talked with George Morrison (thanks for all the help George) and John Kennedy about algie build up's and that was the conclusion we came up with. I've been running an algicide (if that's how you spell it) sence then and ran another test last week. The particle count was a hole lot better we also ran a microorganism test and it detected some slight fungal growth still in my fuel but the particle count was 494 >2um a hole lot closer to the target which is 320 >2um.
To sum it all up were getting real close to what we are looking for. From now on I will be using an additive in my fuel because I never suspected and algie grouth until I had the test ran.
George Morrison can explain the test results better than I can.
Sorry about the long write up.
Johnny Copeland
Todd,
Stanadyne was the OE fuel injection pump mfr. for GM since 78? when the 5.7 came out. If they give the additive their blessing, so must GM.
I guess I'll put this into football/prison terms with the Super Bowl coming up:
You can play zone defense or man defense. You can shackle and assign a guard for every prisoner in a crowded downtown shopping center, OR you can let them run free and turn them all back at the "detectors" at the doors.
I know the way that I would run this system...
Emulsify it, lock it up, and rest easy, because if it gets past the first, and only line of defense and it settles out further downstream, it can cause serious problems just like the inside of that fuel filter in the picture :eek:
To continue with John Kennedy's discussion, Stanadyne builds water separators. Thus the fuel additive they produce contains a water demulsifying agent to promote free water settle from the diesel fuel. All diesel fuel has some level of entrained water in it, as you have seen from the published fuel analysis results. Thus, by using a demulsifying agent Standyne's rudimentary fuel separator can work more efficiently. However, as John Kennedy has shared, the water can then separate anywhere in the system, including the fuel tank, separator, pump, etc. Free water is our enemy; this is what can scar a fuel pump in a heartbeat. Emulsified water can pass through our fuel system without causing harm as the water molecule is surrounded by lubricating agents/diesel fuel.
CAT has been working with water emulsifed fuel containing over 500 ppm water as a possible "clean fuel" alternative. It is still in developmental stages and has real world operatoinal problems but not related to fuel injector/pump life, primarily performance issues.
My position of "locking up" water, emulsifying it chemically, is from years of living with diesel engines, having to approve the exchange of $18,000 fuel injector units, etc. due to free water damage.. Plus, by locking up the water we minimize the problem John Copeland recently experienced with the microbe/algae contamination as one must have free water for microbes/algae to grow in. By locking up every water molecule, we essentially have a bacteria stat condition. Instead of having to use bactericides (poisons) we achieve the same end..
Plus effective injector cleaning, corrosion preventive, lubricity enhancement, cetane boost, and of course agressive emulsification, etc..
Both FPPF and Primrose 405 contain all of the above.
George
John / George
Wouldn't emulsifing fuel cause a thickening / degrading problem if a large amt. of water is pumped into the tank. My point is, most people would pour the additive when fueling up. By not being able to see what your pumping you could introduce large amounts of water without knowing. Then you would have to clean heavy emulsion out your entire system.
For some reason I always thought a good setup would be for the main tank to have a drain sump with electrical monitoring there. Then if a demulsifier would be used the tank would be a place where maximum retention time for break out could occur for water removal.
I was also thinking of another set up on my tank that would use a non vented fill cap. and install a different type vent that would use triethelene glycol to remove The dust and moisture entering the tank. I am sure a lot of dust enters the tank through the tank vent due to the low vapor pressure ofb the fuel.
Your comments on this would be appreciated
a bear-
This is the question haunting me too and the reason I am going with the 2-mic filter before the oem filter. I have dual Racor fuel water seperators on my boat, one for each engine and I get fuel at some places that slams the bowls on the bottom of the filters full.
George-
What happens in the engines system when the emulsifyer carries it through? Will we have 300 miles of poor performance? It seems like this would be more detrimental on something as sensitive as the Dmax fueling system and not so critical in some of the larger equipment mentioned.
If one gets a 'slug' of water even an emulsifying additive is not going to be able to handle that level of water and it will be captured by the water separator to the degree that it can. However, as a normal course of operation all diesel is going to contain 60 to 100 ppm of water. When diesel fuel is allowed to sit dormant, mother nature/gravity takes over and the entrained water will begin settling out; anywhere in the system. The vibration from just starting the engine and letting it idle will cause the water to go immediately back into loose emulsion. This process occurs again and again throughout the fuel system. By chemically "locking up" the relatively small amounts of water always present, we ensure that free water does not occur anywhere in our fuel system. Thus we eliminate the "potential" of free water damage plus have eliminated the source of microbe growth. The 'locked up' molecules of water are now surrounded by a lubricating cover (this is what an emulsion is) which allows the water to go through the system without harming our high pressure pump interfaces or injectors. Along with providing additonal lubricity, corrosion prevention, cetane boost, etc...
Water content, unfortunately, has become a reality due to the EPA's declaration that diesel fuel tank bottom water is hazardous waste. Diesel fuel vendors have dealt with the disposal costs by not drawing bottom water from the tanks regularly. So diesel fuel containing relatively high amounts of water and microbe contamination is almost the norm, depending on the station.
Using a small amount of emulsifying fuel additive is a very inexpensive insurance policy against some potentially very costly repairs.
George
John and George; I recently talked with my service advisor on his dealings with GM on the Dmax fuel filtering analysis and two things came out of it. First, GM recognized that the re-engineering study with Racor was ongoing but would not provide a date for completion or any type of pre-TSB notification to prepare the dealer network to handle service issues. Second, this dealer recently warranteed a set of injectors on a <36k Dmax, with no evidence of contaminated fuel. Apparently they are not the only dealer that is seeing injector failure well before the 100k powertrain warranty; and this is helping to push GM in a positive direction to solve the problem before the "market" understands what a serious problem this is from a reseller standpoint. He suggested that I continue to monitor the ongoing testing and provide the results so that he can "back-door" it through the service network.
Hey Jcopeland, how do have your CAT filter set up? I take it the CAT filters aren't set up with any sort of water sensing or purging device?
I have more concern than any of you other Dmaxer's due to Alaska having the dirtiest fuel in the nation! That being said, you can probably understand my concern. It sounds like you have a good setup going, am REAL interested! :D
Catalina455,
Thank you for your input. Up until now, we've only been speculating/making educated assumptions based on the past experience of others like George. My analysis will be completed any day now and provided there aren't any irregularities like Todd's or Johnny's, we should see how well my prototype unit works. I tried to clean things as best I could before installing, and tried to get as pure a sample as I could, but the prototype mount is missing one procedure that will be implemented, should any production units be built. Time will tell..
FirstDiesel wrote:
>Okay Devil's Advocate here
>Why is everyone in such a pain about fuel filters.
>So far there is no proof of a problem, is there??
>Maverick is over 100k on his truck and Broker has how many trucks with how many >100K+ on them and hasn't had an injector problem.
>Are we creating a problem so we can worry about creating a solution???
>Don't get me wrong, I'll be in line to buy a easy attached system from someone like >Kennedy if he has one that works but I'm just wondering why everyone assumes it's >needed.
srubrn wrote:
>Firstdiesel, There are several cases of injector failure already due to dirty
>fuel. It usually happens aroun 100k. Right after warranty.
>As far as broker is concerned I believe he either double filters or triple
>filters his. It was in another post.
In his 01-11-2003 post BROKERS writes:
George Gozelski, I am running through my OEM first and using it as a water seperator and it also has the water detecting device to let you know if you have any water in it. Going out of my OEM and straight into the cat filter using an adaptor I built, then into my fuel system. It's a plane clean setup and with the lab results it's proof it is working. I consulted with George Morrison and he said to keep running my additive and make one more filter change it there should be down to our target, and also no more lab reports should be needed.
56NOMAD,
You didn't read enough and I can't think which post it was about Broker. He does double or triple filter his fuel. He has aux. tanks on all his trucks with a fuel pump on them and then it goes thru a filter before it goes to the OEM filter. Also if your read a couple of post above this you will see there are certainly problems with injectors. Ask George about the pictures thru a elctron microscope of the inside of the injectors, he said it looked like the craters on the moon. Besides if you really don't believe it, $90 is cheap insurance for a $6000 injector job.
Everyone else,
I am sending a fuel sample out today testing once agian the efficiency of the Stanadyne FM-100 filter. Will let you all know the results soon. Actually I am send two sample to two different places, one being George Morrison at AVlube.
jcopeland
Are you using the CAT 1R-0751 filter (2 micron, high efficiency) with no lift pump and mounted underneath the cab on passenger side?
Don
I haven't seen the actual paper printout, but George just called and said we hit our goal of 15-13-11 !
In actuality, we are VERY close to 14-12-10 as we have:
15 169ppm vs. 320 spec (need 159 for 14 rating)
13 56ppm vs. 80 spec (need 40 for 12 rating)
11 10ppm vs. 10 spec (needed a 9 for 10 rating)
The prototype mount was not yet anodized. Anodizing should ensure that any free metals from the machining process are burned off or tied up so they cannot work free.
[ 01-15-2003: Message edited by: kennedy ]</p>
Kennedy,
From the sound of it, your filter is going to cost more than a set of injectors, just kiddin. Keep up the great work!!!