Diesel Bug

[Talulah]

I have approx 45 gallons of diesel in the tank and it's contaminated with the dreaded diesel bug. Initially I got through a couple of filters but I have now treated the diesel with a biocide which seems to have killed it off.
The problem now is that the glass bowl under the diesel filter fills up rapidly with the killed off bug. Consequently I am having to frequently dismantle the unit, clean it out, refill etc.
Do any forumites have any suggestions what to do to ease the situation? 45 gallons is quite a lot to get through before I can clean out the tank.
Many thanks.

 

[savageseadog]

There are people who will "polish" your fuel for you or you could rig up a pump and filtering system yourself.

 

[chuzzlewit]

Pump it all out into a plastic dustbin via a large funnel with a good filter. Clean out tank as well as access permits. Pour it back via a filter.

 

[cliff]

In my experience a pela type vacuum pump works wonders if you can feed the tube down to the bottom of your tank. You probably won't get all the dead bugs out but you certainly should be able to get most of it.

The diesel you suck out can be allowed to settle then filtered and chucked back into the tank - very little loss of fuel.
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"Artificial intelligence is no match for natural stupidity"
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[Guest]

I fully agree with Cliff ... I did same - OK it was about 45 litres so a lot easier to do.

I made a modification to the pela suction tube ... I fed it inside an ally tube to make it straight and rigid - to get into all those corners etc.

If you have killed of the bugs - then time is a settling factor, any disturbance will stir it uup in the lower layers of tank.

My method is to suck out from bottom generally until you start receiving mainly fuel .... then get a big stick and stir up the tank hard to dislodge and mix all contents as much as possible ... then suck out all the contents.
45 gal - you need an old drum or a couple of standard dusbins .... pump into there .... leave it to settle over a couple of days ... with lid on of course !!

You can use a few bucketfuls from the top to use as wash medium to throw around tank to get last bits out ... suck out with pela ...

A way of speeding up the process ... can be use a small pump to pass the fuel through a filter ... drawing from near top of fuel and follow it down as it lowers ... Drawing from bottom will only drag out sed's / crud. In your case - I would decant into smaller containers - clear or similar plastic to see the fuel before putting back to tank. It is common that the fuel will be darker sometimes near black - this is suspended micro-scopic particles which take ages to settle out ...

Basically you are looking to get your particles / sediments down to the micron level ... a 5micr. water filter as used for domestic water should be good enough ... (the screw canister inline type ... It's diesel not gasoline - so should not fail). Just don't try to rush it ...

Comment on Biocide : You have suffered the one drawback of conventional Biocides ... killing the problem - but creating another. On older engines with cruder / less stringent filters / systems - the LIVING bug will often pass through the engine ok ... but dead matter will accumulate .. taking a considerable time before blocking systems. Later engines with finer systems of course start to get problems much sooner ...
It is generally in our trade - regarded as treat away from equipment .... in storage or transfer tanks. So I think next time - BEFORE hitting the fuel - pump it all out to bins and then hit it ... The tank can be hit with settled out de0-bugged fuel with additive in - lessening the fall-out in tank.

 

[philip_stevens]

I take it from what you have said, or not said, that you don't have a drain cock at the bottom of your tank.

If you have, like mine, drain off the dirty/dead bug fuel- and any water - until it comes clean.

 

[ms1]

Open via removal of the fuel guage sender unit and procedd as per Chuzzlewit and SBC suggestion
Remember there may be baffles in your tank with muck caught behind so shake it up as much as you can .. even then you may need to do this again.

 

[Chrissie]

I was wondering if anyone else in the Solent area has also picked up the bug, perhaps getting together to work on the tanks might be useful? Also that would mean only one set of contaminated dustbins rather than lots.

 

[Chris_Robb]

But the drain plug is never really at the bottom - there will always be a "lip" which will leave about 1 half inch of water or crap behind -( unless there is a sump). So IMHO not a good way to do it.

 

[Talulah]

Many thanks for all the replies.
I have had a quote from Express Lube £400 + vat. Hence at that price I think I'll tackle this myself. Good point about the baffles. Forgotten about those.
So in a marina I can't really have a couple of dustbins of diesel hanging around waiting for the contents to settle. I do have a couple of the metal jerry cans. Would it be sufficient to put in an inline strainer whilst the diesel was being extracted into those and then pour that diesel into another boat?

 

[yogi]

I recently pumped out a forty one gallon tank. with a vacuum type lube oil pump it took three hours to remove about four or five gallons. The next day i purchased a cheap bilge type pump from an industrial supplier, the remaining thirty five gallons took five minutes, pump slowly or there will be overflow. If the fuel is more than three years old throw it out, you won't want to do it over again anytime soon.

 

[Guest]

[ QUOTE ]
..............If the fuel is more than three years old throw it out, you won't want to do it over again anytime soon.

[/ QUOTE ]

Sorry - don't understand that bit ... another old wives tale ? If the fuel is old - then dilute with fresh .......... he's already hit it with Biocide - any residual biocide left will be good for next fuel as well .........

It's Diesel ... not a high vaporous spirit ...

As to sucking out the full contents of the tank via vacuum pela - that would take ages !! Pela for bottom crud ... then stir up tank and use a pump and inline filter.

 

[yogi]

The only reason I mentioned a vacuum pump is that it was given as the tool to use in previous posts. If I were to mix the old fuel with the new at 3:1 and forty one gallons I would need a one hundred and twenty three gallon container, as I don't have one I would think it less expensive to toss forty one gallons of diesel rather than buy said container. It was not my idea to get rid of the fuel but the opinion of the oil company, perhaps they only want to sell me more fuel. If you search "Bp long term storage of diesel" I believe you will find it not so simple as just adding biocide.

 

[ms1]

I used one of those fairly big bore (lots of suction) brass manual suction/ lift pumps with a piece of see thru hose and a plastic tube connected (a la Homebase ... about 1/2 inch diam) this allowed me to hoover away round the bottom of the tank and get out loads of crud. Having a helper would be useful to deal with the disctarge end of the pump so you can concentrate on suction end.
I discharged the muck into 5 litre used mineral water plastic containers (for disposal) then into 5 gal jerry call for filtering and re-use once the fuel started to clear. Cost minimal.
Having had 2 very serious fuel contamination problems in 2 years (one bug one large solids) I now keep this little kit on board (except the jerry cans!! ) .
I know someone who used a fuel cleaning/ polishing service and as a result of his experiences I never would.