Filtered diesel; still looks dirty

[pcatterall]

Still 'experimenting' with dirty diesel.
I had 5 galls of fairy dirty stuff from when I cleaned my tank, I thought I would see if it could be recovered.
It has been standing for a couple of months with no sign of it clearing. I pumped it through one of those filter funnels using a small low capacity pump, it took about 5 mins for the funnel to deal with this amount.
The residue in the container was very dirty but there was little dirt and no water in the filter funnel trough.

Question time

The filtered fuel is still dirty looking ( brown rather than red ) and almost opaque.
Is it technically clean? No, it's not going back in my tank but I will use it for my heater!!

There are 2 filters on the engine, how many microns should they each filter ( There is a seperate water trap) ??

I am still pondering the reserve/day/emergency tank and considering the hight that a secondary tank would have to be using gravity alone. Is it sufficient to raise the 'head' anywhere higher than the injector pump?

What is the recommended diesel engine hand book to have aboard, (something that will avoid me having to ask you all these basic questions!!)?

But thanks anyway

 

[vyv_cox]

Is it a steel tank? I have fuel that looks like that in my little boat, I suspect the brown colour may be rust.

Your day tank needs to be a little higher than the injection pump to allow for piping resistance. Assuming the engine has no lift pump.

 

[GrumpyOldGit]

Better off using the discoloured diesel in main engine rather than heater (if heater is an Eberspacher type) as your fuel filters will take out pretty much anything left after your earlier treatment whereas the heater filter would possibly block up with almost anything but fresh fuel. I have successfully used many litres of 'brown' diesel with no ill effects in main engines and I think that if you checked the tank of most vessels that have been unused for three or four months the fuel would be discoloured anyway ! Think it's something to do with the bio fuel added in , apparently a legal requirement now but I await a more knowledgable response...

 

[pappaecho]

I had the same problem with an 80 gallon tank, the dregs of which were cloudy and blacky brown rather than red.

Shoved it through a funnel loaded with activated charcoal, the funnel which had a fine gauze to prevent small particles passing through. The secret is to pass the diesel through slowly. The results will be as good as fresh diesel

 

[pcatterall]

Thanks all. The tanks are GRP and the first 10 gallons out were quite 'bright' I then cleaned the tank using and discarding about a gallon of fuel. I then gave it a good flushing and salvaged the flushing material to see if I could use it.
The 'day tank' wuold be at least 600mm above the injector pump so I guess that should be ok.
Thanks again.