Fuel additive?

Birddog25

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Friday a friend bought a 1980s International. The guy that had it added transmission fuel to the fuel. He told my friend to add a quart to every tank. Thoughts?
 

85Hokie

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Friday a friend bought a 1980s International. The guy that had it added transmission fuel to the fuel. He told my friend to add a quart to every tank. Thoughts?

Same as thinning out the diesel .... slowing the gelling. No I would not do it.

Same concept they did to the engine oil ..... add a quart of kero to thin the weight of the oil.......

I would add something newer!

For the same reason I would not place straight 30 weight in a 1950 ford 8n!;)

So things that are newer are better - some, not so much. Diesel additives are better - as is oil.
 

BigG

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Adding transmission fluid is done to increase the lubrication to the injectors. The newer formulas used to produce the modern diesel fuel are not as "slippery" as they were years ago. Older engines are not designed or built to run on the dry diesel fuels like the contemporary engines are built.

It is often stated to add ATF or 2 cycle oil to the fuel in older engines to let them run better.

I am sure there are several people on here that do not remember leaded gasoline. The lead was added to provide lubrication to the intake side of the engine. When the gasoline was changed and was produced as unleaded there were problems with the older engines. You can still buy additives to add to the gasoline as a lead substitute.
 
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Justasquid

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BigG is right. Older Diesel engines ran on diesel fuel that had high amounts of sulfur which lubricated the components. Todays Diesel engines have fuel pumps and injectors that can handle the lower sulfur fuel. The older engines pumps and injectors with Low sulfur fuel can see premature wear. As said, many people run 2 stoke oil or other petroleum based additives to help with lubrication.
 

GeoHorn

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I am sure there are several people on here that do not remember leaded gasoline. The lead was added to provide lubrication to the intake side of the engine. When the gasoline was changed and was produced as unleaded there were problems with the older engines. You can still buy additives to add to the gasoline as a lead substitute.
This is an OWT (Old Wives Tale)... Lead was never added to provide lubrication to valves or any other part of the engine. Tetraethyl Lead was added for only one purpose: To raise the anti-knock index of the fuel.... and that is all.
When unleaded fuels became universal some of the older engines suffered from valve issues due to improper / insufficient valve-seat hardening during manufacture. Engines which had properly hardened faces and seat did not have any problem at all. (8N/9N and Flat-Head Fords are examples of old engines that love unleaded gasoline because Henry originally planned those engines from the beginning to run on unleaded gas as well as pure ethanol. They have hardened valves and seats.)

The OWT is so persistent but so wrong. (This OWT was so entrenched that even Shell Oil had a “fuel expert” argue publicly and in many published articles that lead was included for “valve lubrication”.... until he was challenged to prove that engines were suffering from valve failures and that lead was added to gas and the problem disappeared. Of course, they could not find any such evidence...because that is not why lead was put in fuel.) Rumors die hard.
 
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ctfjr

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BigG is right. Older Diesel engines ran on diesel fuel that had high amounts of sulfur which lubricated the components. Todays Diesel engines have fuel pumps and injectors that can handle the lower sulfur fuel. The older engines pumps and injectors with Low sulfur fuel can see premature wear. As said, many people run 2 stoke oil or other petroleum based additives to help with lubrication.
I used to be a regular on STEELSOLDIERS.COM, a surplus users site. My genset, a MEP003A, had a lot of useful posts there. The gensets on that site can be 20-60 years old, well before the new diesel formula used today. There are several posts that suggested using 2 stroke oil or transmission fluid as an additive to improve lubricity.