Midnightz wrote:The temp was 34F. . . . The B99 in the tank was bought on Oct 18 from Seaport in S Seattle.
There's no way that B99 (without anti-gel additive) is going to be fluid at 34°F. There is
no doubt: this
is a problem.
I don't think you mentioned BD in this thread. If you had, I'd have picked up on it right away.
You will need to blend PD & BD at 20/80 or more (more PD) if you are going to be operating below 40°. I bought $120 of Power Service Arctic Express Biodiesel Anti-Gel to avoid the PD blending, but you have to do
something.
Diesel will gel in cold weather. "Winterized" diesel is usually a blend of No. 1 & No. 2 diesel, and has less lubricity and less BTUs/gallon, so your winter mileage & power drops with winterized fuel. But its cloud point (the temp at which it begins to gel) is lower.
Biodiesel -- all biodiesel -- has a higher cloud point than PD. The exact number varies depending on the feedstock used to produce the BD, with animal-fat-based feedstocks typically being the worst (clouds in the high 40's in some cases).
You need to either use an anti-gel additive, or blend with PD, for winter operation. In contrast to PD distributors, most BD distributors do not/will not "winterized" the fuel, because many of their customers are doing their own thing with the BD.
I have five gallons of PS AE BD Anti-Gel here, in two 2.5 gallon jugs. Because I cannot buy BD right now, I'm not using it and I've never used much of it so I cannot say how well it works, but I would sell you 2.5 gallons. Or you can try to buy it local. But blending with PD is the easiest method (unless, like me, you have issues with using any PD at all).
But, yes, you need to get the fuel blended down to a level that will flow. Unfortunately, because we are not going to see weather much above 40° today, the typical fix is to tow it into a garage, heat up the garage, get it running, pour a bunch of PD in the tank and drive it vigorously immediately to mix it up.
I've used a hairdryer under the hood to get the underhood temp up enough to "thaw" all that, but if you can't get the tank of fuel + the line to the filter up to temp, the hairdryer won't do any good. You'll need to get the whole car up to above 50°.