dirt in diesel tank

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pcleary

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i have a fairly new beta 13.5 engine that although being well serviced not wont start although it did at start of season ,i suspect dirt in tank as no fuel seems to be getting through is my only option to drain the tank to get rid of dirt or could it be something else -----can anyone offer advice
 
Is the engine stop button stuck in the stop position?

It took me an hour of checking everything else before I noticed the blindingly obvious.
 
You may be able to pull the feed pipe out of the top, in which case you may notice a sticky mess all over the inlet mesh.

Clean it and apply Soltron liberally to get rid of the Bug. It happened to me two weeks ago...
 
Back flush the fuel feed pipe to clear a blockage. I use a simple portable filtration rig - a water separator filter connected to a 12v fuel pump. Use a length of metal tube with flexible tube as pickup to bottom of tank, via filler opening, or connect to low point drain or pick up pipe, with return back to tank. If you have the bug this will be obvious by black sludge, drain the tank via the rig to suitable containers, then keep filling with filtered fuel and sucking out from the bottom until you get most if the sludge out.
 
A good fuel tank should have a tube in place to suck out a sample of the contents from the lowest point of the fuel tank AND an inspection hatch so that the walls can be cleaned with a rag .... at least in the proximity to the fuel intake. Frankly anything less is irresponsible and likely to cause engine failure in rough seas ...... unfortunately though very common.
 
TradewindSailor said:
A good fuel tank should have a tube in place to suck out a sample of the contents from the lowest point of the fuel tank AND an inspection hatch so that the walls can be cleaned with a rag .... at least in the proximity to the fuel intake. Frankly anything less is irresponsible and likely to cause engine failure in rough seas ...... unfortunately though very common.
Click to expand...

Hmm ,bought the tea-shirt on this one I'm afraid. Last year engine cut out whilst motoring after a pretty lively sail. Eventually traced the blockage to a lump of black slime at the base of the fuel pipe in the tank ( 20 gallon stainless tank with no inspection hatch!). Decided to pump all the fuel out (approx 10 gal) the last dredges being pretty thick with slime. Gave the tank a few flushes with clean fuel,refilled and dosed with liberal doses on Soltron (which I had been using previously in any case). No problem for rest of season and tank left fully topped up over winter.
This year changing primary filter ,noticed a fair amount of black slime,and again fuel pipe blocked whilst trying to bleed the filter. Again decided to pump out all the fuel,which appeared reasonably clean. However I decided only thing to do was to fit an inspection hatch,so removed the tank from the boat (not easy) and cut 100mm hole in it. The base of the tank was covered in about 5mm of black slime which took 3 nappies (!) to clean off. This seemed fairly adherent to the tank but obviously must have tended to break off when agitated at all. Also found some small bits of newspaper floating around!- I tend to surround the filler funnel with newspaper to stop splashes when refuelling -some had obviously torn off and got into he tank.
I steam cleaned the inside of the tank and have decided to replace the fuel filler pipe and the fuel pipe to the primary filter. Will also ensure I put clean filtered fuel back in and dose liberally with Soltron or equivalent. At least I now have an inspection hatch so shouldnt have to do full tank removal again!
 
ta that makes sense one other question do i have to discard the diesel with sludge which i remove from tank or is there some way to clean it for reuse
 
Provided you haven't added any alcohol to the diesel to absorb the water, just let the dirty diesel settle out. The water and sludge will collect at the bottom and clean diesel above. Just poor off the diesel from the top .... perhaps through a netting filter to catch the headlines and the classifieds.
 
I don't use the anti-bacteria stuff. The only additive I use is GUMOUT which is intended to keep the jest clear, and that only once in a blue moon.
Yanmar does not recommend their use as per their 3ym30 instruction manual. When I used the stuff with my Perkins it made no real difference ..... and would never stop the collection of water at the bottom of the tank anyway. It is the water that is the problem: it provides the space where the bacteria breed, feeding on the diesel above. The siphon tube does the job by removing the water, which is the only sensible solution.

I use my boat in the tropics where the action of the bacteria can be rapid. I clean my tanks once a year and inspect them every few months. That is the only solution that I have found reliable.
 
i cleaned all sludge out of tank replaced with new fuel replaced filter then bled the system and nothing ---my question now is how does the fuel come out of the tank, the pipe is out of the top of the tank so is it just a gravity feed or does the lift fuel bpump do all the work i thought that fuel would just flow out of the outlet pipe when i filled the tank any advice
 
"Normally" the tube for the offtake to the fuel line would enter at the top of the tank and go to just above the bottom (to ensure it is above the sludge). The fuel is effectively syphoned, aided by the pump, from the tank (and then either up or down to the engine depending on your setup). There will also be a larger diameter inlet tube and a small dia breather tube - the latter two ususally only go as far as the top of the tank. There will also be a return flow tube to the top of the tank.
- Have you connected the fuel line to the offtake (and not the breather or return flow?)?
- Are the tank, line, filters, fuel pump and injector lines absolutly clear of muck - can you blow through them when empty? (a friend had a tiny piece of teflon tape, ex-original owner, causing a blockage)?
- you refer to changing the "filter" - do you have a second, water seperation filter, that needs to be emptied and changed?
- the whole lot has to be bled (as per engine manual) so that fuel comes out an injector connector if backed off a little.
Cheers, Andrew
 
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Leaving the boat with the tank full is one of the best preventative measures, air expands and contracts with daily temp changes and condensation forms which is where the trouble starts.

Fully concur with the importance of an inspection hatch in a tank.
 
While on the subject, this may be a handy tip. I found it hard to hold a torch over the tank inspection hatch, and got reflections off the surface of the fuel. I soldered a bright white LED and a resistor onto a 2m bit of wire, taped a 650mm length of solid copper wire to it then sleeved 700mm of it in shrink wrap, and encapsulated the wiring by the LED. Now I have an inspection lamp that will fit into a tiny hole, and below the level of any liquid. It lives on the top of the fuel tank.
 
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