what's your favorite lubricity additive?

[boogiethecat]

After faithfully sticking a packet of "Lubribor" into every tankfull of diesel in my 62 Crown for the last 25,000 miles (about 5000 miles per year), and having 4 of the 6 injectors take a dump on my last trip, I think I need to ask if any of you have any better ideas.  In theory the injectors were rebuilt just before I bought the bus and I can't imagine a normal lifetime of only 25,000 miles... so either the lubribor wrecked them, they were on the way in the first place and it didn't help, or the seller was a real liar (or all three).
  In any case when I bought the bus everything was running perfect and did so for almost 25000 miles, but at 25000 even faithfully using lubribor things deteriorated very rapidly (on my last 1000 mile trip that was the first time with low sulfur fuel FWIW) - so if nothing else the lubribor certainly did not keep things as they were...
I just finished installing freshly rebuilt injectors... what a messy job especially with the Jakes...don't want to do this again anytime soon !!!
Thoughts?

[tekebird]

what is that made of Snake Oil?

My DD guy suggests some STF every once in a while

[NJT 5573]

Unless someone can give me a reason not to, I'm going to start using motor oil in my fuel. Maybe even 2 cycle oil, whats it going to hurt? Can't afford 20 to 1 though! Where the new fuel has come into contact with engine paint on my truck engines it looks rusty and corrosive. Whats that all about?

[John Z]

It seems i remember reading about some guys using auto tranny fluid. I don't remember how much it was, but seems like it was a quart to 100 gallons of fuel.

Any of you old heads know anything about this?

[NJT 5573]

I'd like to hear from the veggi oil side on this one. Will a gallon of that redneck corn oil improve low sulpher lubricity?

[HighTechRedneck]

A lot of experienced bus/truck people swear by putting a quart of ATF in each tank of fuel.

[Stan]

ULSD is a new product and I expect there will be lots of things show up that were not considered in its development.  The engine companies and the oil companies worked jointly to get an engine on the road with aceptable levels of emissions. I don't really think anyone would be too seriously concerned with its effect on fifty year old engines. I spend some time with a museum and an oil refinery supplies us with leaded gas for our vintage airplanes. We may need an additive for old diesel engines as well.

Has anyone on the board contacted an oil company or DD to get recommendations from them regarding DD 2-strokes?

[NJT 5573]

boogie, the atf, as I understand it is a high detergent. It cleans the injector holes up as you run it and the engines seem to me to run noticeably better. It also seems to help those injectors that don't want to fire real well on cold start. (engine runs rough and then smoothes out as it warms up). I have not heard of atf helping lubricity as its a strong detergent, but it could, anyone know? I really hope your probs are not low sulpher related but it sure sounds like it.

[John Z]

Back when i still rode harleys, a lot us would "top-oil" them when we were riding 10 -12 hours a day. Almost everybody used Marvel Mystery Oil, adding an ounce or two at each fill (about 4 gallons). I am not sure if it did any good, but i know it did not harm them any.

From what i have heard and read, i think i will try the ATF. Unless i hear some concrete evidence to the contrary in the next few weeks. I am going to be taking my first long trip in my 04 in a few weeks. Am just going to load up the bicycles and head south on I-35 until i get somewhere warm enough to enjoy a few days of nice riding.

[TomC]

It doesn't hurt the engine to run ATF.  But remember that the red ATF will taint the Diesel fuel red giving the impression you are running off road Diesel.  Probably not a problem with us motorhomers, but I know commercial truckers do not add ATF anymore.  Additives like Diesel Power Service used to be red also.  Now it is magically clear.

Let me point out that the mechanical injectors that the majority of you have are not quite the precision closely toleranced injectors that are on the more recent electronic engines like Detroit Series 60, MBE 4000, Cat C13 & C15, Cummins ISM & ISX, Mack, Volvo and the others.  Cat injectors are so closely milled, Cat prefers you to install new fuel filters dry, then pump them up with the primer pump to keep any dirt out.

I know Freightliner has had trucks running with the new '07 engines with ULSD for nearly a year now with well over 2 million miles of combined testing with the new particulate trap engines.  They are using straight pump fuel with no additives, with no injector problems.  In fact what everyone was so scared about, just hasn't happened, at least with the Detroit and MB engines.  Both have gone from a straight unit injector to a two stage unit injector.  With the combination of the more efficient two stage fuel injector and the fact that the ULSD has a bit less BTU's available for power producing, the fuel mileage on the new engines are the same to maybe as much as 1% less.  Also, the big fleets that have been running these engines have said they are seamless-in that the drivers don't know the difference in driveability.  Also, from the initial testing, over the road trucks are probably not going to have to get the particulate traps cleaned for 3-400,000 miles.  In town medium duty-150-250,000 miles. 

I have a 8V-71TI in my bus, 4 cylinder Kubota generator, Mercedes-Benz 300 Turbodiesel.  I don't run additives in any-have already been running the ULSD in my MB for nearly 6 months with no problems.  I only run additive when it gets cold.  But as I said before, over the counter Diesel additives won't hurt the engine, just your wallet.  Good Luck, TomC

[kingfa39]

i like marvel mystery oil, never used to beleive in these things but i had a aircraft engine that had low compression, it was a low time engine, mech added a quart of marvrl to ech 50 gal tank and put one in the oil, i ran it 10 hrs and rechecked and the compression was perfect, it stayed that way for the next ten yrs, mech says it ios a high detergent cleaner, i dont know but it made me a beleiver for sure, i dump a quart in my 06 everyonce in a while, its run good for me for 20 yrs
Frank Allen
4106

[John Z]

Hmmmm, maybe a 50/50 mix of Marvel and ATF would be worth adding to the fuel every once in a while?

[gus]

Frank,

MMO is very good at unsticking piston rings and that is probably what happened to your airplane. That is what I use it for mostly. Never tried it in my 4104 since it never seemed to have a need for it.

The airlines used it by the barrel in the old round engine days.