Fuel bug advice

sarabande said:
BTW, LS, apart from the coils in the copper pipe in your lovely clean installation, what have you done to minimise effects of vibration hardening please ?
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All pipes on the installation are now clipped, this photo was taken befor installation was completed........ So I wouldn't forget to take one.

As you can see the tools are still in the engine bay.

Tom
 
How bad is bad?

The first thing is how bad is bad, staining of the filter or a dust on it to slime or porridge, if is bad its like porridge. How many hours running ago did you check the filter bowls?

I boated with diesel boats for 15 years no problem then new tanks, fuel lines, filters and engines and a big problem?

Firstly you need to drain any water and sludge from the tank do you have a drain cock or a sump or a stripping line?

If the contamination is not too bad use a biocide Grotamar 71 is a good one, mix a shock dose with a gallon of diesel and pour into both fuel tanks. In about three days that should do the business. Do not pour in neat unless you are filling with a fuel gun.

Personally I would not use Soltron, your fuel pumps cost thousands to clean I would not risk any enzymes digetsing the fuel emulsyfying the water and letting it near my fuel pumps!

Take the boat for a run of an hour or so and keep an eye on the filter bowls, when you get back remove the filters and check the elements , how clean are they?

If the problem is not severe you will control it and it will not be a problem, I carry three sets of spare primary filters per engine on board, if filters in poor condition replace the elements. Write the date on them when you fitted them with a felt pen.

If you can strip or drain take off a litre or so each time until you are sure its no longer a problem.

Thereafter always use a biocide with every fill, you never know when you will take dirty diesel until it is too late.

Check the filters before every trip, drain the bowls, know how to change the elements, keep spare elements on board use biocide.

If you have a serious problem get the tanks filtered, Expresslube do a service in the south.
 
Bandit said:
The first thing is how bad is bad, staining of the filter or a dust on it to slime or porridge, if is bad its like porridge. How many hours running ago did you check the filter bowls?

I boated with diesel boats for 15 years no problem then new tanks, fuel lines, filters and engines and a big problem?

Firstly you need to drain any water and sludge from the tank do you have a drain cock or a sump or a stripping line?

If the contamination is not too bad use a biocide Grotamar 71 is a good one, mix a shock dose with a gallon of diesel and pour into both fuel tanks. In about three days that should do the business. Do not pour in neat unless you are filling with a fuel gun.

Personally I would not use Soltron, your fuel pumps cost thousands to clean I would not risk any enzymes digetsing the fuel emulsyfying the water and letting it near my fuel pumps!

Take the boat for a run of an hour or so and keep an eye on the filter bowls, when you get back remove the filters and check the elements , how clean are they?

If the problem is not severe you will control it and it will not be a problem, I carry three sets of spare primary filters per engine on board, if filters in poor condition replace the elements. Write the date on them when you fitted them with a felt pen.

If you can strip or drain take off a litre or so each time until you are sure its no longer a problem.

Thereafter always use a biocide with every fill, you never know when you will take dirty diesel until it is too late.

Check the filters before every trip, drain the bowls, know how to change the elements, keep spare elements on board use biocide.

If you have a serious problem get the tanks filtered, Expresslube do a service in the south.
Click to expand...

Most of the questions you ask are answered in the OP's posts.

Why would he want to carry out all of the above on a brand new boat, delivered to him with the fuel bug already present ?
 
Wow some very mixed replies here. Thanks for all the information.
I dread to think of whats involved in draining the tanks etc.
I have heard from Princess who say its only the start of a bit of the bug and soltron will cure it??? In view of the comments here I need to think about that. I just cant believe Im having this stress over it
 
Possibly did not explain it very well, Of you have a sump on each tank of a litre a litre or so draw a litre off into a clean white plastic paint kettle ( Bucket) that harris or similar sell you will see any water and crud in it, if you need to draw a little bit more off you should soon come to clean diesel. do this after each run until you are sure of the quality in the tank.

You will still need to draw off water and crud from time to time.

If I bought a new boat tomorrow I would put a Biocide in it from day one for a liesure boat.

If it is mild contamination I would rather sort it than wait a week or two for the dealer to sort it and loose a wekend of good weather.

Did your engines go into limp home mode originally or did they reduce rpm due to severe contamination?
 
sarabande said:
I think it's a bit of a myth that the diesel bug only lives where water and diesel interface. If water is dispersed in the fuel, then the bug lives throughout the liquid contents of the tanks, and some bugs even live in plain diesel.
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I am afraid it is no myth and its a problem that ships enineers have been dealing with for years.

The bugs exist in the interface ... However if you fiddle with the liquid in question then that interface may not be a clear cut line of demarkation at the bottom of the tank. The worst scenario is an emulsion. This is where the problem first came to light in the 1960's and many engineering factories suffered this problem in the cutting coolants used on the machines. Basically there are interfaces throughout the fluid . The main problem at this time was dermatitis caused by the bugs hence the need to remove them.

Another place where this happens is in Dynamometers as used for testing engines and in our world in rolling road set ups as at your friendly tuning clinics. Here also a water emulsion is used. One chap here in Edinburgh suffered this and thought I was kidding when told he had a nursery full of bugs in his system which was clogging filters. You could smell them on the cobbled floor when he had drained the system. We hit them with commercial biocides from an offshore supplier and the system was soon clear. Oil rigs also suffer the problem in the control systems for the underwater equipment where a water emulsion is used.

In our tanks it is best to try not to create an emulsion by adding snake oil as it can make the problem worse. Also of course a well shaken and stirred tank crossing The Bay doesn t help.:D

The nursery is definitely in the interface however I agree that bugs can be transferred from tank to tank within transferred diesel.

As we have seen from the OP message here that these beasties can breed like stink when conditions are right so as I have said before. Minimise the risk by keeping down the water content in tank bottoms. Unfortunately this problem isn t usually addressed by tank makers so there can be a layer of water swilling around in the bottom of the tank with the level only being controlled but the occasional slurp passing along the fuel system and hopefully being caught by the separator.

The water mainly comes from the tank breathing which it will always do once a day with the trapped moisture in the breathed air condensing into the fuel.
 
Bandit said:
Possibly did not explain it very well, Of you have a sump on each tank of a litre a litre or so draw a litre off into a clean white plastic paint kettle ( Bucket) that harris or similar sell you will see any water and crud in it, if you need to draw a little bit more off you should soon come to clean diesel. do this after each run until you are sure of the quality in the tank.

You will still need to draw off water and crud from time to time.

If I bought a new boat tomorrow I would put a Biocide in it from day one for a liesure boat.

If it is mild contamination I would rather sort it than wait a week or two for the dealer to sort it and loose a wekend of good weather.

Did your engines go into limp home mode originally or did they reduce rpm due to severe contamination?
Click to expand...

very good point. The engines went into the limp home mode, but the local Volvo service company said Princess had used too fine a filter. He refitted new pre filters and the problem has gone away from that point of view.

The bug is only slight, looking through the glass bowl there are like 45 degree escalators of plastic and its hanging ther circa 20 bits on each arm, if that makes sense.

Are you saying on a new tank it will need draining a few litres
 
Assuming you are looking at Racor filters you are looking at the Vanes of water seperator. Lift out the filter element and look inside the elemnt it should be clean. Keep claen new sets on board.

If you have VP engines they have sensors that will close the engine down to limp home mode before you damage them. did your VP engineer re set them with an electronic tool ? If so ask him what he did and why.

All tanks get some water, water will always drop to the bottom, if you can drain the bottom litre or so with a drain or a stripping line you take out the water with the crud and the root of the problem, with a biocide if you are using it the dead cells will drop the bottom as well.
 
Thanks Bandit. Yes the vp engineer attended the boat. They could not find any water in the fuel lines and so re set the system and replaced the sensors thinking they were faulty. They felt the filters were too fine and so replaced the pre filters with their recommended grade, and it was at this time they noticed a slight bug problem and reported it to me
 
Powersalt said:
They felt the filters were too fine and so replaced the pre filters with their recommended grade, and it was at this time they noticed a slight bug problem and reported it to me
Click to expand...

There is no such thing as a "slight bug" problem...... it's the same as being a little bit pregnant.

Most pre filters take out particles down to 5-7 microns, some polishing systems will go down as far as 2 microns. Clean fuel is exactly that clean anything else can cause major damage to engine components, especially modern day engines.

Once again as a minimum.

1. Remove water
2. Use a a fuel conditioner.

Some people never suffer from this bug, probably due to the turn over rate of their fuel.

I hope everything gets sorted out for you soon

Tom
 
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