Recent content by Trash Panda

Details are important when asking a question, if you hope to receive an accurate answer.

It sounds like you’re looking at a fuel return line.

I’m personally a big fan of putting an oil drip system into my home made wood stove, but I understand that has its drawbacks. Still might be preferable to the “from whence it came” method.

Loose is loud, and tight is usually expensive.

Black/gray would be soot from unburnt fuel, and would be odd to see on an engine starting at 70 degrees ambient. Definitely share what you figure out!

If my Ram hadn’t just turned its 68RFE into glitter, I’d be ordering one now. Sounds like a perfect winter project.

That thread is discussing normal cold start behavior for a diesel engine, not blue smoke indicative of an oil leak into the combustion chamber.

Running the glow plugs isn’t a “fix”, it’s just an attempt at masking the actual problem. Blue smoke is oil in the combustion chamber, and glow plugs running more won’t fix that.

That unfortunately won’t do anything to mitigate the actual issue causing the smoke. It’ll just drain the batteries and needlessly run the glow plugs.

Blue means it’s burning engine oil, and the fact that it is a significant amount at startup leads me to initially think valve seal. Any blue smoke while operating the unit, or is it only on startup?

Oh. The horror!

There is zero reason to replace modern extended life anntifreeze every 2 years unless you just enjoy doing it. Older IAT is a different story. Buy some test strips, check your coolant annually, and drain/fill when the numbers start to degrade. I tend to land in the 3-5 year window depending on use.

Lots of group III and IV synthetics are in short supply due to multiple refiners of synthetic base stocks in the area being throttled or downright shut down. I know Toyota recently put out a bulletin warning their dealers of an upcoming shortage of the 0W oils that their new vehicles prefer...

I mean, if you’re hung up on needing to run an oil produced by a company owned domestically, there are far better options out there than the basic rotella/delo, but it’s gonna cost. If you want cheap, be prepared for it to come from a global conglomerate. It’s the sad reality

FWIW, I’ve been told by multiple guys who work for Cummins that the 6.7’s come from the factory filled with Valvoline PB 5w-40.