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Strange gelled fuel

onefarmer

onefarmer

Well-known Member
Location
6735 S Lowell Rd, St Johns, Mi 48879
2001 F250PSD, a bottle of Power Service white was added to the tank when it was filled.
Day one it was 0 degrees and everything was fine. Started good and ran good.
Day two it was 21 degrees and it started but I didn't get far down the road and the fuel was gelling.

I got it home, added a couple gallons of e15 gas, and let it idle in the driveway for 30 mins. All was fine after that. I can't figure why the fuel would gell at 21 degrees but not at 0, It was the same fill so same mix. It was still about 1/2 full.
 
The fuel on day one was probably warmer. If you filled at a service station, the tank is likely in the ground and warmer. Then the fuel cools off when pumped into a small container such as your truck tank.
 


Day one, fuel waxed and some went into the filter but not enough to plug it. Day two, every particle of wax that was in the tank from the day before was still there. Twenty-one degrees is nowhere near warm enough for the fuel in the tank to get warm enough to melt. Start down the road and more wax gets into the filter until it gels.
 
I had filled it two days earlier and not driven it. And the tank I fueled out of was an above ground on the farm. I dislike going to the station so I get 100 gallon at a time treat it and keep it on hand at home. Buy when the price is down this way. It was quite cold and not driven yet at 9am. Day two it was driven the day before and was warmer. Maybe the fuel had gelled day one like you said and the gell settled over night for the fuel pick to get. I really didn't think it would gell so much with the treatment I put in. Last I knew my fuel bowl heater was still working.
 
You must be mistaken. A responder to a post a couple of days ago insisted that even summer grade fuel won't gel above -30°F. (One might reasonably wonder what other fantastical things he believes.)
 
In that case, showcrop probably has it right.

I'm glad I'm not the only guy to cut in a little gasoline as a fuel treatment.
 
Well I know for a fact untreated summer fuel will gell by 20 above. My old White powerstroke would gell and stop two miles from home. By that time it had made enough heat to warm the fuel bowl, after waiting 5 minutes I could go the rest of the day.
 
In -20 or -30 weather, we used to put a few quarts in a 35 gallon tractor tank. It seemed to help. Now I put a lot of stuff in my heated shop, and so the fuel stays warmer. Or at least I think so...

I'm told VW used to have that in the operators manual of the old diesel rabbits.
 
A vehicle is most susceptible to gelling within a few minutes of start-up. I think your Ford has a heated fuel filter, so once it's had a chance to warm up, the filter shouldn't plug up. Also, return fuel from a warm engine will raise the fuel tank temperature a bit, reducing the risk of gelling.
 
My dad didn't have diesels when I was a kid and my uncle always had #1 diesel so never had any trouble. I'm still learning after all these years of running them myself.

One year I had pump diesel in my 4430 and it gelled up while I was out on the road plowing driveways. Only thing that got me home was I has a hose I put from the fuel pump up to the filler neck of the tank. I figure it was drawing off the top instead of the bottom where the gell was. That was my first experience of gelled fuel.
 
30 years ago a VW owner said the manual stated to add one gallon of gas to 10 gallons of diesel. This may have been before ethanol.
 
Quit using powerservice in spite of how popular it is here. Use Howes and you will be happier.
 
If you look in the tank you will see what looks like snow flakes floating in the fuel. They are wax crystals. If the tractor is allowed to idle the return fuel will heat the fuel and the crystals will disappear. Its kind of a race between the return fuel heat and the filter plugging up with the wax crystals. If you start a diesel and charge out of the shed to plow snow the wax crystals will win. I always wondered with a tractor with like a JD 4020 where you can access the fuel tank if a magnetic heater would help.
 
We gel up every time on howes . I run power service and straight number 1 fuel all winter down as low as 40 below . Youve got to make sure its mixed in well and its fine I like to idle or drive for an hour after adding the additive for the first time of the season
 
(quoted from post at 14:03:45 01/31/22) as i remember the post was about diesel heaters in a building, not vehicles.
Click to expand...


rustred, yes you may remember the post about a diesel heater in a caboose, but that was Saturday. Today's gelling fuel is in a 2001 F250 Super Duty.
 
rustred what difference does that make? If summer blend diesel won't gel until -30 to -40 degrees Fahrenheit what does it matter where it is at?
 
ooh i remember exactly it was a heater in a caboose. and i also know this one is about fords gelling.... so did you see me make a relevant
post here??? do you guys miss the ATF representative that much who might just say put some atf in it, then everyone will be happy. yaa!
cvphoto116125.jpg
 
It doesn't take much water in a filter to stop one from running. Take a new filter fill it with whatever fuel additive you have on hand and run it. I wouldn't pay a dime for a truck load of Power Service and I have gelled once and that was 5 miles from the fuel pump,I let it idle while fueling and must have stirred up some water. I really didn't gell up, I froze the filter. Were running Penray for cold weather.My truck was supposed to be winter serviced in November,Air dryer,drain valves in the air tanks replaced with quick pull drains,oil and filters. Still waiting.
 
Kind of ironic that the guys in the South country seem to have more problems with diesel gelling than we do here in the great white North. I mixed a batch of Howes treated summer diesel back in November to fill up my three diesel tractors that see winter use. They ran just fine. Then I got the service tank on my truck filled up with 100 gallons of winter diesel and have been re-filling the tractors with that when needed. They start and run whenever I need them at temps well below 0F. Howes works for me.
 
you guys fail to acknowlege what i have said. i said the diesel would not run out of the overhead bulk tank at -30. that is a 1 inch hose. anything warmer than that it was running. no way did i talk straining the wax through a filter. that is a totally different thing. put a screen in your funnel , put funnel in tractor tank, pour diesel into funnel screen will plug. remove screen from funnel then pour diesel into tank with out a problem in cold weather. i was replying to what the poster said he had done. not talking gelling in vehicles with fuel running through fine filters. i have been driving every GM diesel from the late 70's that gm built to the duramax now and never ever been stalled on the road due to diesel gelling. do you know how warm that fuel gets in the vehicle tank once its circulated around , and dont you think the engine gives off heat to warm the filters. did you know that wax is your pump lube? the guy was asking if he had gelled fuel at 10 degrees . i highly do not think that was his problem. i call gelled fuel when it will not run out of the hose.
 
First you guys need to get some drains for your tanks then crack them yearly before winter in the early fall. Then buy fuel from reputable suppliers. I don't put the snake oil in the tanks of the supply or the tractors and have little to no problems with fuel. With several different tractors used in the winter. For the northern engines I suppose as the engines are plugged in with block heaters they help keep the fuel warmer as it returns to the tank since the block is warmed by the heater. I like to plug them in if it is below about 35-40 as they start so much easier and warm up faster. Easier starting in cold weather is so much easier on batteries and starters too.
 
Can't speak for the other guys but I know as of August/September 2021 that my tank was 100% water free.As was the nurse tank. I had the nurse tank completely emptied several times since. The F250 tank I removed and cleaned it while doing a fuel pickup repair. I wiped it out of all dirt, water, and plastic parts.
 
Many years ago I had a coffee can partially filled with summer diesel fuel on a bench in my machine shed (why I don't remember). One very cold day I was looking for something on the bench and saw the fuel in the can was like jelly. I thought some snow must have drifted into the can. A month or two later I noticed the fuel in the can was fluid. This visually confirmed to me that diesel does gel in the cold. My fuel supplier blends the fuel with No.1 in the winter. I use CEN-PE-CO POWER FLO KLENZ year round. It will keep No. 2 fuel from gelling if my fuel tank is filled late in the fall and I have not used enough when it gets cold to have room to put some No.1 in. Blended fuel will still start a little better, but I don't have to worry about it. Plus using CEN-PE-CO POWER FLO KLENZ the smoke from the tractor smells like smoke and not like diesel smoke. This is from using a JD 4020 and 4320 every day when I milked cows.
cvphoto116203.jpg
 
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