Diesel fuel additives

[tom lovinggood]

Hello--there are so many diesel fuel additives on the market now. Does someone have a good recommendation for one, or, should l just not use any fuel additives in my M1009? Thanks in advance.
Tom Lovinggood

 

[BKubu]

I've used Power Service, Howe's, and Seafoam...and probably others. But, those are the ones I use regularly.

 

[Alvydas]

In Europe, there are also various additives for diesel engines. I have used at least a few, but I did not feel any noticeable change. By the way, a few years ago I added anti-gel treatment additive to the summer diesel fuel, it really worked. But I did this only because the cold season started suddenly, and I had a full tank of summer diesel in the car.

 

[sbgarage]

Tcw2 rated 2 stroke oil

 

[Tinstar]

You need to use something since the newer diesel formula does not provide the lubricity the older diesel did.

I use Two-Cycle motor oil.
It's designed to be burned and provides the pump and injectors the lube it requires.

Works for me and has for the last 10 years.
I also add a can of seafoam to keep things nice and clean.

 

[tom lovinggood]

You need to use something since the newer diesel formula does not provide the lubricity the older diesel did.

I use Two-Cycle motor oil.
It's designed to be burned and provides the pump and injectors the lube it requires.

Works for me and has for the last 10 years.
I also add a can of seafoam to keep things nice and clean.

How much do l add to each tank full?

 

[LT67]

I use Hot Shots

 

[antennaclimber]

I use the Stanadyne. And on occasion, Sea Foam.

 

[ComNtakeit]

Power service gray bottle for summer white bottle for winter

 

[chucky]

Years back a fellow i know worked in a Peterbilt truck dealer and they took all the big name additives one evening before closing time and poured each bottle in its own bowl and dropped a couple different brand o-rings in each bowl and went home !
The next morning when they checked the bowls all but the HOWES o-rings had swelled up and out of the bowl so they concluded that HOWES was the least destructive on in the fuel system ! I used it year round since early 90s without failure down to 60 below (MOOSEJAW SAKATCHEWAN 2014) and never froze a fuel filter ( USUALLY THE FIRST THING TO FREEZE ) and if you run it year round your fuel system doesnt get varnished up so if you get where its super cold and you start pouring all the additives you can get in the tank they wash all the varnish into your fuel filters and plug them up with black jelly!

 

[Clockwork]

This is an older study, but still good reading.

Lubricity Additive Study Results

The following are the preliminary results of a research study on diesel fuel Lubricity Additives. There is likely to be further commentary and explanation added at a future time. PURPOSE: The purpose of this research was to determine the ability of multiple diesel fuel additives to...

www.dieselplace.com

 

[319]

I like Howe's also, and a bit of two-cycle oil once in a while.

 

[MarkM]

I've been using Howe's for years but I absolutely hate their bottle for once opened the cap never seals right again. It it falls over it will leak.

Mark

 

[87cr250r]

I operate a fleet of ~55 diesel engines that burn 500,000 gallons of fuel in a year. I don't use any fuel additives and rarely have fuel pump issues and never fuel related injector issues in 16 years... On John Deere engines I had a lot of Denso HP0 pumps failing around 17000 hours. I have had one Denso HP4 pump fail at 20k hours. On small Cats I have had issues with the Delphi pumps developing leaks but not failing. I have had a HP injection pump on a C9.3 fail. On the big Cats and EMDs I've never had an injector failure. We did fire a Cat injector through a valve cover before I started the job. We did experience injection pump failures on the MTU engines but again they were not fuel related (MTU tried to blame fuel, however).

 

[thompsoncustom]

I only use opti-lube products anymore after seeing some different study/fuel analyst. It's not that most don't work but some actually don't add lubrication to the diesel they make it worse. If you look up the wear scar testing for diesel fuel additives you can see how much lube your additive adds to the diesel fuel.

 

[87cr250r]

Something to note, when a Stanadyne DB pump is rebuilt the pump head is reused. Wear is not an issue. Additional lubricity is of no benefit.

 

[TechnoWeenie]

Optilube xd is the best out there for our pumps, even better than the stanadyne.

A very, very close second is TCW3. It's a 2 stroke marine oil and has a ton of lubricity additives in it.


For keeping things clean, with a little extra power I use power service, and an occasional tank of techron for diesel.

 

[UNIMOG-GUY]

I used to run 1/2 a quart of the cheapest TCW3 I could find (Walmart) during every fuel fill on any of my 2 CUCV’s. You could literally hear the IP quiet down several minutes after adding it. I’ve also used SeaFoam.

This was all pre the LT swap tho.

 

[TechnoWeenie]

I used to run 1/2 a quart of the cheapest TCW3 I could find (Walmart) during every fuel fill on any of my 2 CUCV’s. You could literally hear the IP quiet down several minutes after adding it. I’ve also used SeaFoam.

This was all pre the LT swap tho.

Yup..

Same thing happened with the 855 cummins in my M934. Dump it in there and you can tell the second it hit the pump and was pushing through the system.

 

[87cr250r]

Put your used engine oil in the fuel tank. I've done up to 10%. The 6.2 runs great on that. It even starts faster.

But, it's extremely rare for for a Stanadyne pump to wear out with or without lubricity additives. If you're trying to reduce/prevent wear you're wasting your money.

If you can find an additive that extends the life of the throttle shaft seal, that would be worth something.