What filters do you B100 users find the best? Coming from the SVO side I still swapped out my stock for a Racor unit which is at least rated to B20. But a recent incident with water most likely from the bottom of the diesel tank that has likely fouled a rod bearing has me wondering about it. I haven't quite run B100 but probably B80 so I'm not really worried but some people are apparently seeing major filter blow out failures.

Got any links to the blow out issues?

Just wondering, how does water in your fuel ruin one rod bearing?

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Originally posted by bradyracing:
Just wondering, how does water in your fuel ruin one rod bearing?

The same way biodiesel makes tires go flat and windshield wipers stop working.

There's a mythical belief that biodiesel rejuvenates old motors to run like new and supposedly extends the engine life to a million km.

It doesn't always work out that way.

I'm pretty sure biodiesel does make tires go flat, happened to me. Water in bd can ruin rod bearing but only in those special motors that direct some of the pumped fuel onto the rod bearing.

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Got any links to the blow out issues?

On the SVO forum here.

Personally I'm not claiming BD was the culprit, it just occurred to me after the other posts. The irony in my case is this is a brand new pro rebuild engine but the caveat is the weather in N. CA on the coast. As Raften can undoubtedly testify to even today, we've had smoke so thick you couldn't see through it, add to that dense moist fog and an almost empty diesel tank and there's a condensation nightmare. I'm sure it ran in between my VO and diesel inline so it was really just an unfortunate occurrence. How exactly it ruins a rod bearing is still just the likely cause, water enters a piston chamber and a little bit of steam can warp a bearing, rings, piston you name it, water is death on an engine. That's the real bummer, I get high quality veggie oil free of suspended water and it's well filtered down to 1 micron but fate is a mother...

A slug of water in the injector can turn to steam and blow the injector tip off, a big slug of water in the intake can hydraulic a piston breaking it or the rod, but steam on top of a piston isn't going to warp a jounal bearing. How did they keep steam locomotives running back in the day?

I saw the sun today without looking thru smoke.

Believe me, with only 3000 miles on this engine I'd like to believe another explanation for why it's got a major crankshaft problem, but I have to fall back on what I know is solely my doing. Water was present in the diesel filter and potentially enough to be above the bowl, definitely more than was in my VO but it was the combo of the 2 that caused the problem. For VO I'm upgrading my filter to a CF.

But for biodiesel I'd greatly appreciate knowing what you're running for filters, I'm assuming everyone replying so far is running stock. I really don't think my B20 rated filter is going to do much worse on B80 but it's not impossible, they do have paper cores. It's Kumar's Yokayo BD I'm running btw so I really only suspect condensation.

Glad to hear you got relief from the smoke today in the city, we actually got more of that translucent haze up to about 1/2 mile from the coast where I live today; that's like looking at the sun, you can't really see it but it's blinding. Last week it mixed to make the coldest damp fog I've ever felt.
Thanks for the input.
Zak

No way did any fuel related problem cause one rod bearing to go bad.Sounds to me like you are getting a snow job from whoever did the engine "rebuild". My $.02 Don

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Believe me, with only 3000 miles on this engine I'd like to believe another explanation for why it's got a major crankshaft problem

I am afraid you are the victim of poor workmanship.
Sadly even good mechanics are rushed to get the job done.

Either the bearing lost or never had proper lubrication or the bearing or journal was worn.
If the crank was machined did the machinist get the size right.
Over the years I have seen cranks over and under size. I have seen the bearing shells put in the wrong way round thus blocking the oil feed and of course the forgot to torque that cap.

Are there strong consumer laws in California.

Unless water in your fuel somehow equals water in your oil, it has nothing to do with the bottom end. An oil/water mixture would effect all bearings in the engine, not one. Water in fuel will never reach any of the bearing surfaces.

If you guys want to try to diagnose the problem I can tell you water got into the engine- I don't know for sure yet it's a bearing. Last time this happened it shot a rod through the crankcase, then there was definitely water in the VO, that also is certain. Now, rebuilt, it's the exact same knocking only nothing is broken now (because I parked it instead of trying to make it home).

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Unless water in your fuel somehow equals water in your oil, it has nothing to do with the bottom end. An oil/water mixture would effect all bearings in the engine, not one. Water in fuel will never reach any of the bearing surfaces.

According to the veg experts that's exactly what happens = water tends to remain where fuel oil flows through. That's the only way I understand it.


The knocking is severe along the crank shaft sounds like the #1; driven it would snap the rod again. Turning it over feels like there's compression loss on the #1 as well but I don't have a gauge yet and clearly the rods are all intact. It just so happens the mechanics are my friends and I know they wouldn't screw me, we had to substitute an identical 86 2.3L block but the components are the same identical cranks, along with a clutch that had been installed backwards and tore up the tranny. I've rebuilt engines before but this was beyond my skills, also it's a Mitsu TD and that's nuff said in the mechanic world.

The clue to this is that this knocking happened once before recently, 2 weeks ago it knocked, while in between veg and diesel, I switched back to diesel and it quit, ran fine. Then with the diesel tank almost empty it happened again and either there wasn't enough diesel to correct the problem or else something bent or warped or got out of shape.

So whatever this is, water is a culprit, and it's something I'm going to have to solve (or go broke).