fuel filters

[Gordon Maney]

How often are you replacing your fuel filter on your Cummins powered truck?

[mxpro]

Overkill??

I know it is probably overkill but I change mine every 10K. Pretty easy to change and cheap insurance.

Curt

[Ed Tavernier]

Fuel Filter replacement

Gordon,
I try to replace mine every fall; sometimes in the spring also. I have just turned 100,000 miles on my 98.5 24 valve SLT.
Eddie

[scott youngblood]

Probably overkill as well, but I change fuel filter at every other oil change. Usually between 8 and 10,000 miles.

[Jeff in N.Tx.]

I changed mine every 20,000 miles on the 2001 I just traded in. I suppose I am lucky the thing didn't quit on me. I think I will try to change it about every 10,000 miles on this new truck.

[CGarbee]

The Cummins operator's manual for the B series says to replace the fuel filter at every other oil filter change....

[nascar mark]

I personally change mine out every time I change the oil. Diesel soot gets past the rings and thickens the oil.

As a side note, don't cheap out on the oil filter. Fram and some others may work great for your car but fall apart internally on the cummins and clogs the piston squirter ports, which takes out the pistons. I will only use FleetGuard. With the Stratapore being the best!

[MoparNorm]

If your Cummins is under warantee you have to be very careful and document using a MOPAR/CUMMINS approved filter, or your warantee may be voided.
MN

[Harry]

diesel fuel filter

The last time I changed mine I had been 94k and wished I had waited as the remaining diesel was pretty. The worst thing that I've seen is starvation and when they starve put on a new one.

[Terry Newton]

I heard someone make the comment...

"oil and filters are cheap."

Of course, he meant in relation to replacement engines/trucks.

[MoparNorm]

Correct! The biggest danger to diesel fuel is water. Per the preceeding post from yours, I don't know if I'd go 94,000 miles without changing. If you have ever had water in your diesel tank you KNOW what a pain that is!
MN

[Paul Cook]

We assume that the fuel we buy is clean and water-free. Most pumps have filters prominently placed to give us a good feeling about the fuel we buy.

I bought bad fuel one time at a high volume truck stop. The engine in my '89 Cummins showed signs of a fuel problem. I stopped and drained the filter thinking it was water. In fact, I repeated this at the next rest stop. It was Sunday and there was no place to buy a correct fuel filter. I got just over 100 miles when my truck quit. I slept in the truck and first thing Monday I bought a replacement filter but it did no good. It turned out that changing the filter and the standard fuel line bleeding procedure was not enough. The injection pump had to be bled by a dealer. I reacted to water and it was dirt in the fuel.

The big rigs have a lot more fuel filtration and aren't as affected as our trucks.

Now I carry a spare filter to be installed at the first sign of fuel problems. I avoid truck stops with no pavement - not because of the image, but because dirt is more likely to be carried into the underground tanks by surface ground water. I try to resist using the last quarter tank of fuel so that one fill would not be a whole tank of bad fuel. The reality of bad fuel means changing the filter any time you buy fuel at a "discount in the dirt" fuel stop.

[MoparNorm]

My experience was at a "discounter" on I-25 in Southern Colorado. The pumps acted "funny", very slow, but I didn't think anything of it until the pump completely stopped pumping. I went to another pump and finished filling the tank. Within 25 miles I was dead in the water. I pulled the filter, it was completely full of rusty water. That station had unlined steel tanks and they were nearly empty, I had unwittingly pumped about 3 gallons of rusty water into my tanks. Complete disaster there! Total removal and flush!
Another time I fueled from a 55 gallon drum on our ranch, it had picked up water from a leaky roof over the fuel shed, I stopped after the first gallon, it still took 7 tanks and a bunch of additives to stabilize and remove the less than one pint of water from that tank.
Now I no longer store fuel and only buy fuel from the "majors".
MN