A little secret about red diesel = You can get by running it for a short while but eventually you will get caught by a batch that has too much dye powder. The fuel distributors toss in a packet of dye into the tanker truck then fill the tank with road diesel. Unfortunately, if that truck has been used multiple times to deliver red diesel, you just might get a heavy load of dye powder especially if the truck has only ran short trips that didn't thoroughly mix the dye and fuel. The dye can clog filters, injection pumps, and injectors. Currently supervising my buddies while they removed the 150 gallon fuel tank and cleaned it, changed out all eight injectors and three expensive filters, and finally suffered thru the expense of buying and replacing the injection pump on a V8 3208 turbo Cat engine. You don't want to know how much this red dyed fuel cost my friend, or how many hours of labor they invested resurecting that big Cat hidden inside a 38 foot Diesel pusher Foretravel motor coach. Lesson learned the hard way about trying to save $30 on a tank of fuel. It ain't worth it !
I've seen the cherry pickers for those engines. They are very substantial. A former friend of mine had bought one surplus from Paccar in South Seattle years ago. Kitty Cat 3208, Cummins 350 Big Cam III, any other huge truck diesel, it handled it all.
After a long eyeballing we decided it would be way less work to do the surgery with the engine anchored in it's original mounts. Lot's less stuff to risk damaging as the majority of the work was on the top of the engine. The fun part was having to remove the bracketry holding the alternator, auxilary air pump for the brakes and air suspension, and the huge coolant fan, all to get access to the tach drive gear that had to be removed to free up the injection pump. Not a complicated job, just inconvienent because it was located below a queen size bed that had to be removed first. I imagine the guys arms are sore after that job due to the weight of the components. Primed the system and it fired off tonight, runs perfectly now. EXPENSIVE lesson for sure.
Kind of makes you wonder if the older off-road equipment has zero problems because of more loose machining/manufacturing tolerances, and the newer on-road vehicles actually are given much tighter tolerances so that the dye has a good chance of gumming the works?
I dunno. The older injector pumps had some pretty tight tolerances, measured not in thousandths, but in angstroms. Also the injectors themselves.
Really? In Angstroms? That really is a tight tolerance. So Hillbilly, have you heard of an older piece of diesel machinery that quit working because of dye in the fuel? I figure you'd know, if anyone did.
I don't have enough fingers an' toes to count the diesel powered equipment that died in my area due to dye poisioning. Name a brand of farm tractor, there were many cases. Same for farm oriented semi-trucks that got treated to that crap. I first noticed this problem when I queried local farmers back in the early 60's as to where to buy fuel the cheapest. Some of them praised the cost savings but far more told me I would be a fool to put that swill in my equipment. A prime example is a farmer living two miles away from me who swears that all the tractors and trucks littering his farm didn't die from tainted fuel. One quits running, just buy another one. Nice big equipment too. Too much money and not enough brains. I made the mistake of loaning him a 1962 International Harvester 560 diesel tractor, once. It was returned after his dyed fuel plugged some part of the Roosamaster injection pump resulting in it blowing the seals around the control shafts. It still ran but dripped fuel like crazy. Learned from that experience, no more dye and now I know how to rebuild those dang pumps. And the tolerances inside them pumps is crazy tight. So tight that it makes our car oil pumps look like a boat paddle in a bucket.
So what's the alternative? Use road diesel and file reams of paperwork and documentation to deduct the road taxes? That would seem to be a nightmare.
