I've been planning to do a dual spin on filter setup in addition to the box filter for a while now, but i've feared the winter months and fuel gelling/water freezing in the spin on filters as they have no heaters.

Fuel heaters do nothing for gelling. If the fuel in your filter is gelled, your tank and lines are gelled. All the heater does is help with moisture icing in it. But it does not prevent it, I have had my dodge filter ice up and die in cold weather with high winds on a few occasions because it iced up with an old filter.

VW's don't have heaters and semi's rarely have heaters, as they are actually unnecessary. I have had no heater on my 6.2 or Cummins for several years as I switched to spin on and the dodge one is prone to leaking so was removed. No issues.

The solution is good winter fuel and proper filter maintenance. Change your fuel filter in the fall to remove the moisture, problem solved.

Another issue, a square box filter with 2 spin on filters is creating too much flow restriction. Its taxing the pump by creating too much media to flow through, especially when they have been used a bit and become more restricted.

Swap to that system and put the OEM box filter in the garbage where it belongs. Most people who want to swap to round filters and want to keep heaters and WIF warning, just get a Racor set up.

 

Been through 2 box filters in the past 2 months due to fuel issues.

Never any water that comes out.

My theory is that if fuel gels at a set temp, warming said fuel will prevent or reverse that.

Of course if the lines and tank are gelled your are walking for the day.

Mine was just a bad/gelled filter which meant i ran the batts down trying to get it to fire.

Recharged the batts, heated the fuel filter up and she fired right up.

I'm not so set on either side of the issue, but it does happen.

 

Been through 2 box filters in the past 2 months due to fuel issues.

Never any water that comes out.

My theory is that if fuel gels at a set temp, warming said fuel will prevent or reverse that.

Of course if the lines and tank are gelled your are walking for the day.

Mine was just a bad/gelled filter which meant i ran the batts down trying to get it to fire.

Recharged the batts, heated the fuel filter up and she fired right up.

I'm not so set on either side of the issue, but it does happen.

If you warmed a filter and it started, it was not gelled.
If you pull the filter and fuel drains out it is not gelled.
If you pull the filter and the fuel it looks like jelly, its gelled.

The filter traps moisture, that's it job. When there's enough moisture, to form a droplet, it forms and flows to the drain. If there is only a tiny bit of moisture, it forms ice crystals when cold and restricts or blocks the flow. Warm up the crystals, fuel flows again. If water made it immediately to the fuel drain, the only ice would be at the drain and nothing would ever be restricted in the filter.

When a diesel has fuel issues in cold weather, people jump to the conclusion that it is gelled when in most cases it is not and rarely even investigate further.
I have only had fuel gel once when I needed to use the truck to get through a storm at -30 and it was parked for the season with summer fuel.

I have had filters ice up a bunch of times and most of those had fuel heaters, which unfortunately, didn't solve the problem. They had to be manually heated. In every case that I had, the filter was overdue for replacement, but I was too cheap to do it when I should have.

 

We have been running without fuel heaters for about 5 years, no issues. The wires for the original FFM/Box filter, usually just hang at the back of the motor. This past summer, finally got around to removing those wires from the loom. For us it really comes down to a maintenance issue, change filters in the fall (then again in the spring), same time remove and clean glow plugs. We have more of an issue with water in our filters, due to WMO filtering. It is a nice heater that you found though Dave, seems to be genuine Stanadyne also.....

 

I recently put a racor r200 with the primer plunger. The clear bowl lets me see all the nasty the primer plunger makes bleeding the fuel system a breeze and the bowl has ports for a water in fuel probe and a fuel heater.

I use a 2 micron filter:thumb:

Nice to see you back:bow:

 

2 micron as a secondary or only filter?

 

No filter heater either and she started fine at -15 deg C.

 

I wouldn't run 3. I will and have got flak for deleting my 6.5 ffm. Im running this on it now. I ran my drain hose down and back on the outer frame below the drivers seat where I can empty it to a glass jar for inspection. Also since this has 4 ports I have the second outlet port hosed to my "t" valve which I have mounted on the inner fender with a 3 foot hose coiled up for testing outside the engine bay and for bleeding air during filter changes. I am ordering a racor instead for this truck with a sight and maybe a heater and going to swap this to my 91 and get rid of the stanadyne 80. This mount is a 1-14 Thread which gives you alot more filter options than the early spin on mount which is 1-12.