frothing diesel

[owen]

whenever I fill my diesel tank i get frothing and spurting out of the breather.no matter how slowly i fill up it occurs. the spurting goes on for 5-10 minutes usually all over the cockpit. i usually resort to lots of kitchen roll. has anyone found a solution

 

[Guest]

Sounds like you may have various turns or restrictions in the filler pipe causing turbulence ....

Bit like a car I had before .... many years ago - no matter how careful you tried to fill the tank .... slow and turning nozzle to best angle - it spurted back and kept kicking the anti-splash trigger off.

Suggest you check out the "run" of the filler pipe and straighten / unblock as best you can.

 

[Danny]

I have the same problem. I now use a large funnel as this seems to help. Probably because it slows down the flow and makes me release the trigger frequently.

 

[Dipper]

My boat is also difficult to fill but for a couple of years it was almost impossible to fill due to frothing. I resorted to filling up a fuel can then decanting this into the tank. I wasn't very popular at busy fuel pontoons!

I discovered that the breather tube went down and then up in a big U bend and the bottom of the bend had some diesel in it. This allowed displaced air past very slowly but not fast enough to prevent the build-up of froth. Once the diesel was drained out of the tube it returned to the usual slow but acceptable speed of fill.

I would check your breather tube or the breather vent in the hull.

Having just seen dauntlessman's post do you even have a breather on your tank?

 

[Tomkat17]

I have a similar problem with the breather pipe fitted to exit into my side cockpit pocket. This left a very smelly pocket and any gear covered in diesel. This is the designed (Ha! Ha!) position. I have got round the problem by using a empty water bottle and placing it over the breather tube end when I fill the tank. This collects the frothy diesel that spurts out when the tank is full and I simply remove and screw the top back on ready for the next time.

 

[claymore]

Time. Thats all. Time - fill it slowly and keep stopping to let it settle.
The sod with mine is that when you've done that and got it drip free, the minute you walk along the sidedeck and tilt the boat slightly, the breather coughs out a great gob of diesel so I still need loads of kitchen roll and soapy water.

 

[savageseadog]

I noticed something similar when I filled the car at Tesco's. Normally there is no problem but on one occasion I had severe frothing such that I could only put less than a quarter of a tank in. I told the staff and showed them what was happening but they couldn't explain it.
Possibly you've had a fill of the frothy stuff and there's still some residing in there.

 

[owen]

i was under the impression that forecourt diesel had an antifrothing agent added

 

[rickp]

One of these works very well (if you have the space).

Rick

 

[danielbroad]

I had a very awkward to fill Bayliner and had a device from West Marine that "suckered" over the vent pipe and collected any spills, very neat.

Daniel.

 

[Andrew_Fanner]

All Gold is a right so on this one, can take 20-30 minutes per 100l on a bad day. I can't see any obvious issue so need to get at the breather some time. Its a gauzed one as she used to be petrol, would just poking the gauze out and binning it be viable? What do the panel reckon? IIRC narrowboat breaters are just holes in the side of a blanked off bit of pipe well above the tank..

 

[snowleopard]

The one time I had diesel from a tank on the quayside with gravity (unpumped) feed there was no froth and I could fill at a sensible speed!

The best method I find is to use a big funnel and direct the flow so it forms a whirlpool and the 'hole' in the centre lets air escape. as soon as I speed up enough to eliminate the hole in the middle of the whirlpool it starts to spit back.

 

[Dipper]

Before you trash the mesh, try removing the hose from the breather and see if that improves things (but make sure the hose end is clamped in a sensible position /forums/images/graemlins/crazy.gif).

Also, check the hose is clear all the way through - see my reply above.

I think frothing is inevitable but the effects of the frothing can be reduced with a clear breather hose.