Okay, warning to all in advance - this is a VERY long, winded story. Cliff notes below, so if you're short on time, I don't want to hear "I want my 15 minutes back" or whatever, just scroll down now.

I was driving across I-69 to Port Huron, since apparently my Phys-115 (college student) lab partner was having some problems with his work vehicle (he lives on a farm) having some gelling issues. For those who haven't owned a diesel, gelling is where the low temperatures change the crystalline structure of the material in question, in this case diesel fuel, to a gel/paste, which doesn't flow well through injectors, pumps, filters, etc. Basically, it's undesirable. So, I'm driving across I-69 to his barn to help him change the fuel filter in this John Deere, since it apparently takes two people and his old man came down with something.

As I was about 20 miles from the exit he told me to take, my truck (K2500, a 6.5L Turbo Diesel) started to get real sluggish real quick. At first, I was just giving her a little more throttle, and not a mile later, I was doing 10mph with the pedal THROUGH the floorboards, on a downhill, just trying to keep the old truck rolling. After another 1/2 mile, the truck just couldn't keep going, and I wound up pulling off in a ditch. I'm thinking that it was basically catastrophic failure, and my first worry was to gtf off that interstate (icy still) before someone slides into me.

I worked for a while (20mins or so) trying to get the truck started and finally got it running long enough to see all my gauges right where they should be. Without any means of diagnosis, I start thinking of how to get a tow. CB calls got nothing, and finally a good samaritan pulled up, and offered me a tow to the next exit. So, we rigged up the tow ropes (keep in mind, we have a 30+ mph cross wind with traffic flying by) and he started pulling me (C1500 beat to hell towing a K2500... ) to the next exit, and called a tow truck for me.

After the inevitable wait, the tow truck driver showed up, and we got the truck up on the bed, which was still all shiny from the factory (brand new truck) and I got in the side seat, and off we went, heading back toward Flint along I-69 WB, as I chatted with him about nonesuch. About 5-6 miles down I-69... yeah... we started losing power. Not 2 miles later, we were once again doing 20mph, pedal through the floorboards. That's right, the same problem. So, here we're sitting, two diesel trucks, one on the bed of the other, waiting for a friggin' tow. Turns out, neither of us used anti-gel last tank, so I'm thinking we both gelled up.

So, our tow truck arrived finally (we called TA out in Saginaw) and loaded up the GMC-5500 with a C/K 2500 TD on the bed and we head off for the GMC Dealer out near Flint, MI. By now, me and the first tow truck guy, Bubba Earl, are just laughing our asses off, because this is the funniest thing I've ever seen in my life. We're chatting about how we both had the same symptoms, when the driver of the TA tow truck, a Peterbilt, turns to me and says... yeah... "I got the pedal to the floor, and this thing ain't gettin' much more than 45 and dropping". That's right, the tow truck's tow truck done and gelled up. This happened once more on the way back to the GMC dealer in Flint, and I don't know what happened to the TA Peterbilt tow truck since we can't be towning a whole string of trucks, lol.

Yeah, one of the weirdest darned things I've ever seen. Especially since all of us fell to the same symptoms.

Cliffnotes: diesel done and broke down (probably gelling, dealer says it's the brand new Lift Pump that is still covered by Goodwrench), the tow truck (duramaxx) broke down, same symptoms, and same for our next two (collective) tows. Guys at dealer got a good laugh out of a tow truck coming into the shop for troubles with a vehicle on the bed still with the same problems. Got a free tow out of it.

by the way, throughout this whole time, the temperature got as high as -2F out, and with windchill it felt like -20 to -30 out. Basically, it's $%^&ing cold out, and feels %^&$ing colder. yeah.

 

Funny. One of the downfalls of a diesel. Extreme cold. I thought they had the additive packages to keep the fuel from doing that? I remember seeing a film on the Alaskan pipeline build. All diesel engines were left running 24/7 while building it. So cold onces shut down they couldn't get them restarted without a trip to thaw them out.

 

I miss Michigan. (not)

 

the second tow truck came all the way from saginaw? thats a helluva trip!

your buddy still waitin for help on the farm truck then?

 

Summer in MI is awesome...winters suck. I counted over 100 days without sunshine when I first wintered there.

 

lol.

It is def. cold - this was an unusually cold day. We called the TA out by Saginaw for the tow, took a bit of a while. We sat around and watched the local smokey going back and forth on main street (one of like 5 roads in town) just pulling people over right and left. Must've gotten 20 or 30 tickets written up while we sat there and waited at the KFC.

btw - my friend still hasn't gotten his Deere fixed yet - I'm going out this coming weekend to help.

 

Weird when I had my diesel I never had the fuel ever gell up, and there was days easily around -40 C not F and never showed any signs of gelling and I never added any additives, funny story though

 

It was -8 F this weekend and had no problems, no additives either.
Not sure why it effects others differently, maybe bad fuel around there?

 

sounds like bad/low quality to me

 

If that aint irony, I don't know what is.