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big truck, duel tanks, cold weather

Last post 11-13-2007 08:12 PM by robcam0076. 4 replies.
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  • 11-10-2007 12:53 AM

    big truck, duel tanks, cold weather

    Hello all, I'm new to the site and looking for some cold weather advice/input. 

    I live in NW Montana and am fortunate enough to have a Biodiesel station in town(B99 is currently 10cents cheaper than petro diesel). The temp stays well below the freezing mark during the winter(5 - 6 months) and dips down to -20F for a couple weeks a year. I bought a Ford F250 last March and have been happily running Bio ever since.  Knowing the temp challenges of Bio I bought an older model truck with duel tanks.  The plan is to run B99 in both tanks when temps permit and, when the mercury drops, run petro in the rear tank for start up and shut down and bio and/or a blend up front.  My hope is that I can install a fuel line heater which I could turn on from inside the truck once it is running(or ideally would run concurrently with the block heater) and switch to Bio once the fuel in the lines is warm enough.  My questions are: a) is this feasable. b) does anyone out there have any experience/advice in doing this with such a large vehicle(seems like most of the people running Bio are doing it in much smaller rigs).  Any help or advice will be greatly appreciated. 

    Kevin

    AKA f250bio  

  • 11-10-2007 07:48 PM In reply to

    Re: big truck, duel tanks, cold weather

    a. is feasible, just have to have everynook and crany of your bio fuel line heated, especially in those deep deep cold days.

     

    b. I have a f-350 6.0 and been running biodiesel in it for the better part of 3 yrs now...

    40 Gallon 2 tank Biodiesel processors, Well built, Easy to use, Quality parts. pm for pictures and details!

    Running B100 in my truck: Ford 2005 F-350 Ext Cab 4" lift 35" Mickey Thompsons
  • 11-10-2007 08:46 PM In reply to

    • natescape
    • Top 10 Contributor
    • Joined on 01-14-2002
    • Between Providence and Cape Cod
    • Posts 4,584

    Re: big truck, duel tanks, cold weather

    For what it's worth, I have run b30 or so all winter in southern New England without a dual tank system. Of course, it rarely (if ever) gets below 0 here, so it's really not as cold as Minnesota.
  • 11-12-2007 10:22 PM In reply to

    Re: big truck, duel tanks, cold weather

    Yes, you can run b100 in the winter in cold northern states .I live in Michigan and just bought an 03, 1 ton Dodge  4+4 with a Cummins turbo diesel and will be adding another fuel tank for Biodiesel .I am going to run coolant from the radiator along side the fuel lines to the Biodiesel fuel tank,and install an emmersion coil type tank heater in the biodiesel tank.Also will install a temp .probe in the tank,mount a temp. guage on the dash,and when the Biodiesel tank is warmed up I will swiitch over to 100% Biodiesel .Then when I get back home I will switch back to regular diesel fuel so the truck will start up again the next day. Hope this helps you out. Duff Streeter    www.michiganbiofuel.com
  • 11-13-2007 08:12 PM In reply to

    Re: big truck, duel tanks, cold weather

    Your dual tank Ford set up sounds like a good idea.  I've thought about ways to heat up B100 when parked at home as well as on the road.  If you get some resistive heating type pipe wrap from your local hardware store, you might be able to do what you want fairly cheaply with a little bit of elbow grease.  The pipe wrap would be the kind that prevents pipes in your house from freezing,  

    When you're parked, 120VAC could power up your fuel line pipe wrap system directly to keep it warm.  When on the road, you might be able to hook up an inverter to get 120VAC from your 12VDC.  If you permanently mounted the inverter in your truck, all you'd have to do is move a plug in from the household 120VAC to your 12VDC/120VAC inverter when you drive.  You'd have to be careful to make sure the current draw isn't too high for the 12VDC/120VAC inverter system. 

    You'd obviously need to have 120VAC for the system when parked with the engine off or your battery would get drawn down pretty quick.  You'd probably still need to heat your B100 tank with coolant due to the amount of heat that would be required to warm the tank sufficiently. 

    If you do try a system like this, I'd be careful to make sure the heat wrap system was thermostatically controlled and/or had a safety shut off so things don't overheat.  Although, I'd guess during extreme cold, having enough heat will probably be the problem.  Insulating the lines somehow would probably be the key to making things work sufficiently at cold temperatures.

    Another option would be running your coolant lines to the heated tank right along your fuel lines that are to be heated.  If you had both fuel and coolant lines wrapped up in an insulated assembly, that might work fairly well once the coolant was heated up.

    If you want less home grown types of solutions, check out Arctic Fox products at the link below:

    http://www.arctic-fox.com/

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