Question, I am in the midst of a dual-tank conversion. And I am running out of time and I am considering taking a short-cut I am not happy about but would make my life a lot easier for a up-coming trip I am making in a few weeks.

The truck is a '97 Cummins 12v, with the large black filter/water separator located near the firewall behind the injection pump. Its a *severe* pain to work around because the ABS system is completely in thew way.

I had originally planned to reroute the diesel system so that the diesel filter was before the lift pump, moving it from pressure to vacuum so that I would not put any veg oil through the diesel filter.

I don't know how the stock fuel filter is really designed. I had planned on putting in a small 40 micron mesh cleanable final filter just before the IP as a 'feel' good measure anyways (good practice for wvo). What if I skip that and do not re-route the stock filter and push all the filtered veg oil through the diesel filter? Its going to take considerable time for me to re-route the stock diesel filter pre-lift pump. And if I can keep it hot enough would it matter that much?

I am running out of time and considering this long trip I am preparing for I won't have to shut down very often and I don't mind LONG purge times. (IE, 10+ minutes on diesel) Can I just introduce the veg pre-lift pump and keep the stock system completely the same and re-route it when I have time later? I'm not worried about spending an extra $10 on diesel for purging the extra 16+ oz's of veg-oil for the road trip if that is really all it would equate too.

Provided the veg is sub 10 micron filtered is there any chance its going to mess with the stock fuel filter/water separator?

Taking this short-cut could really simplify my next two weeks if it will work.

What do you guys think? I'm pretty sure this truck's filter is a cleanable screen and not a removable element?

 

Unless I am mistaken again there IS a paper filter inside that housing on my truck. It would definitely not hold up to much grease. So I think i'm kind of answering my own question at this point. Sure I could do it. But I would be changing that filter on the road, possibly often :/

 

you have a wire mesh screen in the fuel heater (just forward of the lift pump) and is inline before the lift pump, then you have a spin on filter located up there on the head, behind the brakes, it is basically identical to an oil filter, it should handel the WVO no problem as long as it is pre filtered, and with a good purge time you will be fine, worst case, it may crank a few turns longer, but it will fire, good luck

 

I agree w/DT75
If it were ME, I would leave the stock Filter and install an auxillary Filter that is 10 micron rated not much lower. Lower than 10mc will slow the intake and higher will allow too much stuff greater than 10 to go into your stock . Even if your oil is 10mc (heating will allow stuff greater than 10 to pass and as it cools will clog a 10mc filter); this isn't always the case but a lot of times this is why its imporant to let your oil settle a good amount of time or filter it warm (90-100F) NOT hot through a 20 and then the 10. Also to go along with that, definitely install a FP gauge and aux. inline fuel pump and make sure you have the pressure reading just after the OEM fuel filter. Not 100% pos what the pressures are supposed to be heading into the IP in the 12V but on the 24V it should be 15-20 idle and 12-15 under load (Some will advocate higher, others a bit lower but Cummins told me 15-20 is what you want with a good amount of volume as well; Dodge will say 7-10 is sufficient. Total BS). A simple electric inline 10psi pump will suffice but may or may not last long pumping heavy VO mixures. I run my ($50) aux. pump for 2 yrs and it's still going mostly 70WVO/30Petro mixture. I always purge the system (start and turn off on regular petro). I have a small 5G diesel tank and use the same OEM filter.
Good luck.