Ford Lehman Biodiesel

[DCParks23]

Anyone running their Ford Lehman’s on biodiesel. Our fuel dock is now offering “Neste MY renewable Diesel”.

 

[Blissboat]

Can't answer about Lehmans, but my experience running other diesels with B100 left me regretfully cautious about the product. Regular use of 100% biodiesel over time resulted in leaking gaskets around the fuel pumps, probably due to the properties of the cutting agent that had been added to the vegetable oil. Neste claims their product differs from conventional biodiesel in terms of cetane, cold tolerance, and etc. Neste also represents that its fuel is "OEM approved," which sounds nice, if vague.

I'd like to be able to go back to biofuels, so am open to learning more. Not keen on tearing apart any more fuel pumps, though.

 

[jgwinks]

No experience with Lehman's, but the research vessels I ran burned B99 bio. That's 99% virgin soy oil. Engines were Detroits and Cummins. They ran great but with an increase in fuel consumption. B99 is about 10% less energy dense that petro, and it was also more expensive at the time, about 15 years ago. They ran much cleaner with very little soot. The lube oil did not turn black, it looked about the same at 100 hours as it did coming out of the jug. We did have a serious problem with the fuel lines though. After the first season on B99 all the rubber hoses started leaking and we ended up changing to a Teflon type hose. Very expensive. They ran B20 for years prior to the B99 and didn't have that problem. So if the fuel your considering is 99% bio I'd anticipate problems with the rubber parts. 20% should be ok.

 

[KnotYet]

Anyone running their Ford Lehman’s on biodiesel. Our fuel dock is now offering “Neste MY renewable Diesel”.

I'm even a bit nervous about using B99 in my 15 year old diesel pickup. As noted,
leaks have been reported after using B99 in old diesel fuel systems so would pass.

 

[Moonfish]

We just had a presentation to our yacht club last month on renewable diesel by a fellow that has run the Inside Passage from Seattle to Alaska for the last 10 years and has not used a single drop of petroleum-based products - fuel and lubricants.

The biggest takeaway from his talk for me was the difference between the old "bio-diesel" and today's renewable diesel. The molecular structure of renewable is chemically the same as petroleum diesel, and it's now a straight replacement without the need for mixing. There were a bunch of other advantages that I'm not scientifically endowed enough to properly extol, but the main disadvantages currently are the price (higher than regular diesel) and availability.

His website: https://www.decarbthepassage.net/

 

[KnotYet]

Good info, Moonfish.

At my local road diesel station, B99 is around 15% less expensive
than standard diesel fuel, which makes up for any loss in MPG, IMO.
I did just add $100 (19.2 gal) of B99 to the truck but plan to top off
with petro diesel thus diluting 50/50 to be safe.

 

[Nomad Willy]

NY you mean “petro diesel” being 50/50 gasoline and diesel?

 

[dannc]

A couple of decades ago I looked into biodiesel, and in the end, figured out that the stuff is not going into my engines for a variety of reasons.

Unfortunately, until recently, we had to use gas with ethanol and we have spent thousands of dollars fixing small equipment engines destroyed by ethanol.

We can now get ethanol free gas so hopefully those engines won't get messed up again.

One thing we noticed when my wife bought a new, used vehicle, was the MPG was as we expected for a few months after purchase. Then the MPG dropped 15-20%. With ethanol free gas, the MPG went back up to where it was when we first purchased the vehicle. Flip side is that the ethanol free gas is much more expensive than the bad gas so for the vehicle we will likely still use the ethanol gas.

Later,
Dan

 

[OBXSkipper]

I have a friend who is in the fuel polishing business here in NC, your motor may burn it but your fuel tanks will hate it and apparently it causes endless headaches once left sitting . It was last year when we talked about it so I really don't remember alot of other details. Check with someone in your area who polishes fuel and see what they think about letting it sit in tanks like many of us do. Good Luck

 

[KnotYet]

NY you mean “petro diesel” being 50/50 gasoline and diesel?

Uh, no.
50/50 mix of B99 and ordinary, petroleum derived diesel.

I should note that this is probably an over-reaction on my part.
The fuel I bought is 'renewable diesel' and apparently not the same
as biodiesel 'blend'. The 76 station company also refers to it as 'R99'.

 

[Sababa]

In a fit of idealism in the early aughts I ran biodiesel in an 80 Mercedes wagon without apparent trouble. I then ran it in a new Mercedes C.D.I. sedan and gunked up the intake manifold to the tune of a several thousand dollar repair. I later found out that the head gasket failed on the previous one for its next owner. Lesson learned. I wouldn’t let the stuff near my boat diesel and tanks.

I also don’t see the point in it. The math says recreational trawlers are just not meaningful contributors to climate change.

https://www.trawlerforum.com/forums/showthread.php?p=1110480

 

[Chuck34]

Anyone running their Ford Lehman’s on biodiesel. Our fuel dock is now offering “Neste MY renewable Diesel”.

Call Brian at American Diesel and ask his thoughts.

 

[mike66]

"I also don’t see the point in it. The math says recreational trawlers are just not meaningful contributors to climate change."

If you are burning it you are producing CO2.
Then add in the energy to plant, harvest, and process biofuels.

Boating under power requires energy. If someone is concerned about their "carbon footprint" then sailing or solar electric is the answer, not a switch to some other combustible fuel.

 

[RT Firefly]

Greetings,
Mr. m. "...you are producing CO2." ...and we're back to the hydrogen thread again...

 

[socalrider]

"I also don’t see the point in it. The math says recreational trawlers are just not meaningful contributors to climate change."

If you are burning it you are producing CO2.
Then add in the energy to plant, harvest, and process biofuels.

Boating under power requires energy. If someone is concerned about their "carbon footprint" then sailing or solar electric is the answer, not a switch to some other combustible fuel.

The point of it is to reduce ones carbon footprint - pretty straightforward. Whether that comes from reducing air travel, switching fuels, changing one's diet, etc. it all counts the same.

That said, from what I understand older simple mechanical diesels are generally much more tolerant to fuel specs. I'd also want to know if there's a difference in how well the biodiesel tolerates contamination with water, growth of microorganisms, and sitting around for months and months - these are much less of an issue with road vehicles, and I strongly suspect that if there's an issue with the switch it'd be in the fuel storage, not actual combustion properties or lubricity in the Lehman engine.

 

[jgwinks]

I think long term storage could be a problem. On the research vessels toward the end of the season (we're in Michigan so they're laid up 5 months of the year) we'd run the tanks down as low as we dared then fill with straight petro before layup. B99 can gel in low temperatures. The NOAA boats here also used B99 and laid up with it in the tanks. They had a lot of trouble getting running again in the spring. We learned from thier mistake.

 

[BruceK]

Greetings,
Mr. m. "...you are producing CO2." ......

If we could just stop people exhaling.....

 

[KnotYet]

If we could just stop people exhaling.....

Animals, bacteria and living things in general do not increase the atmospheric CO2,
but do tend to fix it in biomass. Until, of course, some mammals start releasing CO2
trapped for eons in petroleum and coal in a shorter time scale than those eons.

 

[PM]

IMHO, most diesel breakdowns and problems are fuel centered, why add the risk of biodiesel? A reputable manufacturer, maybe, but the risk of sucking a french fry into my system is generally just too great.

pete

 

[Old Sea Dog]

Had to drain and clean the two 150 gallon saddle tanks on my Peterbilt because of biodiesel. The scum that sits in the bottom just grows stuff. No amount of additives broke this stuff down. The truck did NOT sit. I made a living with it. Same reason I run nonethanol in the FL car before heading north in my diesel pickup.

 

[SIBERNUT]

Until China & the rest of the 3rd world buy in, debating this is a moot point. Be a hero & go "green", it's like throwing a deck chair off the Titanic.

 

[socalrider]

Until China & the rest of the 3rd world buy in, debating this is a moot point. Be a hero & go "green", it's like throwing a deck chair off the Titanic.

I disagree with this from a morality perspective but fully understand the sentiment in practical terms.

The way we're going to solve this is by making next generation energy sources better than the ones we've got now. That's already happening in the electric sector, with solar and wind significantly below costs for coal (on a marginal cost basis) and even natural gas (at least on a new build basis - NG prices have cratered recently).

From what I'm hearing on this thread from actual biodiesel users, we're not there yet unfortunately. Same with battery/electric on boats. Happily as has been pointed out we're not a big part of the problem & the vastly larger light duty automotive sector is rapidly decarbonizing. We'll let them drive the cost curve down for us, and hopefully the MD/HD sector will demand high quality low cost liquid fuels which might ultimately be a better solution for our trawlers.

 

[KnotYet]

Until China & the rest of the 3rd world buy in, debating this is a moot point. Be a hero & go "green", it's like throwing a deck chair off the Titanic.

Makes about as much sense as throwing your plastic trash overboard because 'they' do.
As the second largest CO2 producer worldwide, our actions have a major impact on this issue.

I live in an area that has improved air quality the last 50 years with over 2X the population.
Many people bitched and moaned then and some still do and always will. Most folks get it.

 

[Sababa]

The point of it is to reduce ones carbon footprint - pretty straightforward. Whether that comes from reducing air travel, switching fuels, changing one's diet, etc. it all counts the same.

It all counts the same individually, but it scales differently collectively. It may feel good to reduce the carbon footprint of one’s own trawler. But as a project “decarbonizing the inside passage” is wasted effort. Total success wouldn’t make a difference to global carbon emissions.

That’s not true of decarbonizing air travel or food production, to say nothing of stationary power sources or road transport. And there are much more practical technologies in the works for those applications than there are for recreational boat propulsion. Trawlers are going to continue burning diesel for a long time, and that’s just fine in the grand scheme of things.

 

[Action]

Makes about as much sense as throwing your plastic trash overboard because 'they' do.
As the second largest CO2 producer worldwide, our actions have a major impact on this issue.

https://www.investopedia.com/articl...Carbon,The U.S. 3. India. 4. Russia. 5. Japan.

The US may be #2. However, #1 is two and a half times the output of #2
If one were to add in North America (Canada and Mexico), the #1 spot is still over double North America

And the countries of numbers 1, 3, 4, 5 and six are all Asia. Making the vast output of CO2.

Sure US government control in America makes a difference. However, the gains in the future that are possible will come at a far greater cost than what has been done in the past. As a consumer/producer I am not willing to pay at lot more.

If it helps, a smaller mix of bio in diesel may be OK. Seems like a large amount comes with a penalty price for an industry that may not even register in the big scheme of things. I will do my part in keeping all of my machinery running in a well maintained condition. That also includes waste disposal. Just don't force me, the retail consumer, to do things that other countries have not even considered. Go after the sources that can make the bigger difference instead of going down the road (or water) of taking away my recreation source to make someone feel good with almost no global impact.

 

[psneeld]

If I were to consider biodiesel (which has been around for awhile), I would do some real research beyond this forum....everyday I spend on TF, I see more and more misinformation than ever. It's good for specifics, but you have to do some real filtering to get to the good stuff.

It's like the comments on ethanol gasoline. I have been using it for over a decade and never "destroyed" any little engine....heck, hardly had any problems with it once a few lessons learned within the first year or two. But usually nothing more than a minor carb clean. Granted I wasn't using antique equipment, just the normal stuff homeowners, RVers and boaters would own. So I am not sure where this great myth came from other than user error.

 

[KnotYet]

https://www.investopedia.com/articl...Carbon,The U.S. 3. India. 4. Russia. 5. Japan.

The US may be #2. However, #1 is two and a half times the output of #2
If one were to add in North America (Canada and Mexico), the #1 spot is still over double North America

And the countries of numbers 1, 3, 4, 5 and six are all Asia. Making the vast output of CO2.

Sure US government control in America makes a difference. However, the gains in the future that are possible will come at a far greater cost than what has been done in the past. As a consumer/producer I am not willing to pay at lot more.

If it helps, a smaller mix of bio in diesel may be OK. Seems like a large amount comes with a penalty price for an industry that may not even register in the big scheme of things. I will do my part in keeping all of my machinery running in a well maintained condition. That also includes waste disposal. Just don't force me, the retail consumer, to do things that other countries have not even considered. Go after the sources that can make the bigger difference instead of going down the road (or water) of taking away my recreation source to make someone feel good with almost no global impact.

It should be noted that the US' per capita CO2 output is ahead of most countries,
including China and the rest of Asia. As a result, efforts to reduce our individual
CO2 production are worthy of consideration.

Your prediction that further improvements in CO2 reduction carry some onerous
price tag may be your opinion but are not inevitable. Who now frets about how
costly the change from oats to petroleum as a fuel was? People did what worked.

In the not too distant future, the idea that billions of vehicles used a century-old
technology for nearly all travel will seem just as quaint as when the world ran on
only horses and steam.

 

[SteveK]

It could also be noted that in the past 40 years the US offloaded a lot of pollution producing manufacturing to Asia, returning cheaper produced product and becoming lower producer of CO2. Win Win.

 

[psneeld]

Not sure losing manufacturing capability to China is a good thing.

 

[socalrider]

I did a bit more research on biodiesel, from the perspective of an environmentally conscious person wanting to do the right thing.

Summary: run away. Not good for the environment at all as it's currently produced. Aside from the tiny amount sourced from waste vegetable oil (fine, but not gonna move the needle) it's like ethanol but even worse - displacing crops grown for food, causing deforestation as new ag land is required to produce, etc. etc.

Lots of pressure from enviro crowd to kill off both ethanol and biodiesel subsidies, but difficult with entrenched and powerful ag interests. *sigh*