The Smell Of Diesel

Personally, I love the smell of diesel fuel.  But if you work with diesel engines or drive a diesel, chances are pretty good that eventually you are going to spill some fuel on your clothes or your shoes at some point.  Its one thing to like the smell of something, but when that smell becomes constant and overpowering, it can get pretty damned annoying.  There are many different things that I have tried out there to get rid of the smell.  Most of the things I have tried have ended up in failure.  I have thrown out clothing in the past because the wife refused to let me bring them into the house.  She gave up on the frustration of trying to clean the diesel off of my clothes years ago!  I have finally found a solution that has been working fairly consistently for me for some time now.

In the past, when I have had spills on my clothing, I would simply wash the heck out of my clothes.  Over and over, the smell of diesel would stay from one wash to the next.  I tried soaking my clothes for a bit, and then washing them.  I experimented with different brands of detergent.  I tried fabric softener.  None of the normal methods I tried had much success.

There where some methods that I tried that sometimes produced good results.  I still keep these around as backup defense against the diesel stink if my primary attack doesn’t work.  Pouring a small amount of Coke or Pepsi into the wash along with the soap and water and letting that soak overnight before washing.  Soaking for a few hours with Pine-Sol.  I also have sometimes used ‘kids-n-pets instant all-purpose stain and odor remover’, a cleaner you can find at WalMart with some success as well.  None of these have matched up to my primary cleaning method but they are all cheaper alternatives that you may want to give a try at first or if you find that my way doesn’t do the trick.  With most of these methods, soaking your clothing is an important step.

The method that I have found to work most consistently on diesel soaked clothing is to soak it in Orange All Purpose Cleaner (Orange Glo), and then dump a couple of cups into the load before running it through the wash.  Works like a charm, but it can get kind of expensive if you have to do this on a regular basis.

One last word to the wise.  If you have clothes that reek with diesel smell, do NOT put them into the wash with all of your other clothes.  Ive made this mistake once.  Once!

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Getting Rid Of Fumes

Having a large diesel powered engine doesn’t mean you have to constantly smell the fumes of the big motor, you can easily get rid of those smells, as well as gain some extra horsepower and torque that you may not have ever considered actually being untapped inside of your motor. For a few simple bolt on modifications that are going to help you calm down the smell, and overall sound of a diesel power house, you are going to want to take a look at the air filter, headers, and the exhaust. The headers and exhaust can really be considered one system, but for this article we are going to consider them two different modifications. If they need to be replaced, they will all add up to causing your vehicle to smell more like a diesel power plant instead of a smooth running engine.

Replacing the headers is going to be your first shot at fixing the exhaust leaks, and the main reason why you smell diesel fumes inside the cab of the vehicle. When you are going down the road, the wind is pushing those spent exhaust fumes back towards the cab because of the small leaks around either the heads of the engine, or the exhaust pipe brackets. Either way, replacing them is going to be the first step in fixing the fumes problem.

Next is replacing the worn out exhaust piping system for your diesel powered vehicle. If the system is more than a few years old, you may want to have it checked for any leaks. These will allow spent fumes to rise up into the cab while you are sitting still, giving you the constant smell of diesel fuel. These two mods aren’t expensive to buy the parts, and can be easily replaced in a day by almost anybody.

The last thing you need to check is the air filter. If you have a dirty air filter, then you aren’t allowing the engine to properly mix the air and fuel, and the combustion isn’t happening as hot as it should. Your engine isn’t burning off all of the fuel because you have a bad air filter, and if you change it out, you will be guaranteed to smell less fuel fumes, because the engine is going to be using more of the diesel to put power to the ground, instead of leaking fumes into your cab.

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Free Up Factory Restricted Horsepower!

From big bore intake stacks, and manifolds, to super sized six inch bore exhaust pipes, getting diesel power doesn’t get any easier. We want to explain to you how any person with a few simple tools can go out in the garage, or in the front yard, pop open the hood to their diesel powered engine, and begin cranking up the horsepower. Letting an engine breath is a great way to free up some ponies that were restricted at the factory, but you have to make sure that they are emissions legal in your state before you make these modifications. Not being able to pass a smog test means you can’t register your vehicle in some states, but in my personal location in Florida, we don’t have any emissions laws, and people run around with exhausts taken completely off of cars all the time. The reasons manufacturers restrict the diesel engine power is because of these very emissions tests, and because the laws are so strict on new car manufacturers, the producers of these vehicles absolutely have to ensure they meet every states codes. This means putting on restrictions that your state may not require.

If you are wanting to begin freeing up some diesel power that has been cut off back at the factory, then you want to begin by looking at the way your engines intake it set up. If there is a restrictive air box surrounding the air filter, then you are probably going to be able to get a couple of ponies out from under the hood. All you will have to do is purchase an after market air filter that is open, and then remove the air box assembly and save it for a later date, in case you want to sell the truck. This one mod will help the engine breath in a lot easier.

As for breathing out the used exhaust fumes, your diesel powered engine is going to need some bigger exhaust pipes. In most states, there aren’t a lot of requirements on the size of the pipes you can use, but manufacturers still restrict it because of different states emissions laws regarding diesel powered engines. If the pipes are 2 inch or even 3 inch sized pipes, you can probably increase them to 4 inches, or even larger if you are using a fuel map programmer type of unit.

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