posted on April 26, 2006 10:55:39 PM
Mike...You want to be sure you get all the french fries out of that oil. Those suckers can sure clog up an injector
If Murphy's law is correct, everything East of the San Andreas Fault will slide into the Atlantic
posted on April 27, 2006 05:00:36 AM
THANKS FOR YOUR INPUT MIKE. I want to run a 30 ton komatsu excavator.(I think you guys call them track hoes.)we mainly run them in the winter time. but where we are mining the temperature does not get any colder then about 3 deg celsius of a night time in the winter time. and about 20 deg celsius of a day time , and to about 55 deg in the summer time. So we dont get as cold as you guys do.
At this time i dont know of any commercal ventures producing the biodiesel here. Machinery users here are very worried about it causing serious damage to their machines. a few people have produced small quantities and really like it . you have given me quiet a bit to think about. thank you for all the links. I will be checking them all out.
posted on April 27, 2006 10:45:53 AM
Thanks for the links Mike. I've been meaning to do some research on biodiesel. Our next pickup will probably be diesel since we like to travel with our (3600 lb)camper.
We also have 1990 Isuzu FSR with 250K miles on it. We'll be using it to move from FL to TN soon. We expect to make 2 or 3 trips. It used to be belong to a local moving company. The truck has been mostly parked for the last 2 years. We have only put about 50 miles on it since we bought it. We start it occasionally and plan to have it checked before we take it on a 600 mile trip. Any ideas on what we should be on the look out for?? Do we dare run bio in it? Do I understand correctly that you can mix regular diesel and bio with no problems?
posted on April 27, 2006 01:38:22 PM
LtRay - Your Isuzu FSR should be fine on biodiesel. Most of the seals internal to the injector in these engines are copper and not o-rings.
Yes biodiesel and regular diesel can be mixed. That is what the blends are. The B15 blend in my area is 15% biodiesel and 85% regular diesel.
As for what to do to your truck. First thing to do if you have not had it done yet or are not sure if it has been done before is to have the overhead adjusted (valve's adjusted). Isuzu inline 4 and 6 cylinder diesel engines are a critter all to themselves. Unlike the majority of other diesel engines when the valves get out of adjustment they actually get tighter on these engines instead of loose. This is very hard on your power and fuel economy, more so than loose valves. I have adjusted many Isuzu overheads on engines and had the customer come back the next day and ask what I did to their engine. First thing I think is oh god, what did I screw up! But they just want to know because they have not had their truck run so good in years. I did a guy's NPR about 3 months ago with a 4BT inline diesel engine that had a little over 200,000 miles on it. It had never been adjusted before and he was the original owner. He came back the day after he picked it up and asked what I had done. He said he was stunned at how much power he now had in the truck and that in just the one day of driving he had driven it about 350 miles and already figured it had increased the fuel economy by 2.5MPG. Needles to say the fuel savings alone will pay for the overhead adjustment in no time.
Have a trustworthy shop look the truck over bumper to bumper for things like brakes, belts, hoses, etc... Last thing you want is a belt flying off halfway through a long trip. Again if it has not been done or you are not sure if it has been done have the transmission gear oil (for manual) or ATF fluid (automatic) and rear gear oil changed. You would be supprised how long a trans and rearend will last if properly maintained. I have seen manual transmissions and rearends go hundreds of thousands of miles OVER one million miles with proper maintenance. A little money in maintenance will go along way in cutting down on repair bills in the future. Best advice is just go by the maintenance schedule in the owners manual. The hardest part is finding a reliable and trustworthy repair facility.
Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former. - Albert Einstein
Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former. - Albert Einstein