Contaminated Fuel

[petem]

Indeed. From what I can recall, 100ml of Marine 16 will treat up to 2500 litres of diesel so that works out at a paltry £2 per tank full on my boat. Got to be worth doing?

 

[Portofino]

just ran into this problem, the racor separator was full of crud.. I bought a new filter and cleaned the racor and replaced the filter.. As for the crud in the tank, I had no inspection hole that would readily un do, but I was able to disconnect the main filler hose from the deck from the tank. I bought a 12 volt oil removal pump from Lidls, attached a socket to the end of the sucky up side to weigh the hose down and allow it to settle to the bottom the tank and duly pumped out 4 liters of crud.. until I saw red diesel.. not the most elegant fix but for 20 quid including filter, I am quite happy.. I will continue to monitor the racor to see if the problem was fixed

We have drain cocks at the bottom ,in fact the bottom is not flat they are more trapezoidal with the cock at the lower point or apex .
Sight glasses with self closing valves are connected pretty low two just above the drain cock, so would like to think any 8hit would enter the bottom of one of those and be visible .
So for so good all clean :encouragement:

 

[Paul&Ness]

UPDATE

Having taken a sample and added Marine 16 yesterday, this is the result today:
I am ordering the parts to build something similar to superheat6K fuel polishing rig. I have some guys coming round tomorrow to have a look at the tanks to see if the access is good enough to can get them cleaned.
I normally get my fuel from Itchen Marine because that is where my boat is moored. I have been informed that their fuel has additives to combat diesel bug. Which is understandable as they refuel their own tugs there and they would want to make sure they had clean fuel.

Establishing a good fuel polishing routine is my next goal. I already have a two filter system, primary and secondary filters (FS1212 & FS1251) but these filters are the canister type so you can't see if water or debris is present. So a future upgrade will be to see if I can fit a different filter system that would allow me to see if there were a change in fuel quality/cleanliness early. Hope to have the engines out sometime over the winter so another item to add to theist of upgrades.

 

[superheat6k]

UPDATE

Having taken a sample and added Marine 16 yesterday, this is the result today: View attachment 67028
I am ordering the parts to build something similar to superheat6K fuel polishing rig. I have some guys coming round tomorrow to have a look at the tanks to see if the access is good enough to can get them cleaned.
I normally get my fuel from Itchen Marine because that is where my boat is moored. I have been informed that their fuel has additives to combat diesel bug. Which is understandable as they refuel their own tugs there and they would want to make sure they had clean fuel.

Establishing a good fuel polishing routine is my next goal. I already have a two filter system, primary and secondary filters (FS1212 & FS1251) but these filters are the canister type so you can't see if water or debris is present. So a future upgrade will be to see if I can fit a different filter system that would allow me to see if there were a change in fuel quality/cleanliness early. Hope to have the engines out sometime over the winter so another item to add to theist of upgrades.

As you are local to me you are welcome to borrow my rig if you don't mind buying me a new filter element when you are done. If you come to my boat I can show you how I use the thing, but when I first made it I hoovered the muck out with a short length of copper pipe, wiggled all over the base of the tank, then allowed the clean fuel to return all via the filler.

PM me if this is of interest.

 

[gordmac]

I was gifted a large quantity of old, contaminated diesel, Marine 16 cleaned it up fine and I ran my boat on it no problem. Having said that superheat6k's equipment will do the job properly, I would take him up on his kind offer.

 

[Paul&Ness]

Thanks, I am am taking him up on his kind offer. Hoping to spend some time on Friday using his polisher and technique. Will report back once the operation is complete ��

 

[crossy]

I think 'crossy' had a bug issue recently too.

Yep, got significant issues with the bug. I had SDM fuel solutions come out to test the fuel and I have a significant water content which explains the bug (marine16 will kill it but doesn't tackle the cause), what I can't conclusively determine is the source of the water ingress but my suspicion is a leaky deck filler cap (I imagine the seals have worn a bit or gone stiff over the years).

Unfortunately, the access to the tanks is not good enough to cut inspection hatches and do the job thoroughly in situ and I have no drain point on either tank so will have to hope that emptying the fuel, filtering/polishing followed by several flushes through from the deck filler with more diesel will be enough to sort the problem. If not then it's engines out followed by tanks out....

While the tanks are empty I will see whether I can install drain off points so I can then fit a polishing system such as the one detailed above or an off the shelf one such as http://www.marine16.co.uk/acatalog/Diesel-Dipper-163.html#SID=17

 

[Paul&Ness]

Hi Crossy

Thats exactly where I am... Simon and Dean of SDM came out and I have exactly the same tank issues. I have been considering having th engines removed for a short while so I may have to bring my plans forward to do exactly as you describe.