the perils of white diesel and the bug

[Joker]

I got the diesel bug myself earlier this year. Fortunately, it had formed into a sausage like glob which had blocked the uptake from the tank and got no further. This was in Germany, and the mechanic scooped out the blob and showed me the rest of the fuel, which was quite clean. I had last refuelled in the Netherlands, with bio diesel, which had been sitting in the tank all winter.

 

[geem]

I think if you clean your tank out every three years or so and use a biocide at every fill you could comfortably use what ever diesel fuel you want with no ill effects. I think it is more relevant how the fuel you are using has been stored than the fuel quality or colour. Red diesel has to meet the same stringent emission rules as white diesel these days so many of the suppliers simple add the red die to white diesel.

 

[[70521]]

Personally I think it's better to get the tank 'reasonably clean' every year than 'spotless' every three years.
The idea is to never have more crud and water than your filters can easily cope with.

I am hoping to keep it reasonably clean, I use Soltron, all the time and do some preventative maintenance on a three year cycle.

 

[NormanS]

If your tank has a dirt/water sump fitted with a drain, (like mine) there will be no accumulation of dirt or water. Tanks used to be made like this.

 

[ffiill]

I just finished writing up a quick blog about how I recently had to sort out a tank full of diesel buggy fuel.

The symptoms only became apparent after a rough Irish Sea crossing in June. We (a friend and I) put it down to an air lock.
Then as the engine cut out again, several hours of motoring and days later, we put it down to water still making its way out.
When it cut out again, I suspected something else.
When it cut out again, I went through the entire fuel system and discovered that in the space of 10 days, my entire fuel tank had turned to opaque pineapple juice.

I've only ever used white diesel, given that I only use about half a tank of fuel a year, the cost is negligible.
I now realise that it's equally, if not more prone to the bug as red diesel. Marine 16 is now my friend.

You can see what it looked like via my blog post and the steps I took to sort it out.
includes a free "diesel" joke

http://www.boogie-nights.org/2016/08/diesel-fitter.html

Red diesel white diesel or for that matter keroscene.Last year I had to drain off my central heating tank and clean it out after an outbreak! I

 

[Nicholas123]

If your tank has a dirt/water sump fitted with a drain, (like mine) there will be no accumulation of dirt or water. Tanks used to be made like this.

In the past when we had a real Engineering Industry practical common sense seemed to be pretty well,common place.
That was before the EU the Metric System & Margaret Thatcher

 

[macd]

That was before the...Metric System

Yep. Bring back that good old, user-friendly system with a proper Anglo-Saxon pedigree: Avoirdupois.
Oh, maybe not :ambivalence:

(If I might be permitted a Michael Caine moment, the British gallon actually once was to base 10, but that was far too simple so Parliament changed it.)

But, yes, tank sumps and drains should be mandatory. But measured in bushels, of course.
I can't see any reason why RCD shouldn't properly concern itself with this, the more so because the issues are likely to get worse rather than less.

 

[[70521]]

In the past when we had a real Engineering Industry practical common sense seemed to be pretty well,common place.
That was before the EU the Metric System & Margaret Thatcher

Thankfully we have moved on since those olden days. Even my late father, a Clydeside shipbuilding apprentice, who went to sea as a marine engineer and had his second's ticket in that steam stuff thought metrication was brilliant, although he was not keen on Mrs T.

When I did my own training he would sit and discuss what I was doing and why. Although I work in a different field he could see the engineering logic behind what we were doing. Perhaps the petrochemical industry has given us a "new" problem to engineer out and there are no issues going back to old designs to give us the solution.

 

[vyv_cox]

The base ten stuff is fine until it comes to values to the power of three or more. Stresses in tons/sq.in. meant a lot more to me e.g. 20 ton/in2 is now somewhere around 350,000,000 pascals.

 

[RichardS]

The base ten stuff is fine until it comes to values to the power of three or more. Stresses in tons/sq.in. meant a lot more to me e.g. 20 ton/in2 is now somewhere around 350,000,000 pascals.

But isn't is surprising how close Nm and ftlbs are? Well it surprises me when everything else seems to be totally different.

Richard

 

[Joker]

You mean 350MPa?

 

[vyv_cox]

You mean 350MPa?

Yes but the basic unit is the Pascal, the force exerted by one Newton on a square metre of surface. A Newton is about a tenth of a kilogram (another 'artificial' basic unit) meaning that a Pascal has so low a value that it is almost meaningless. In the Imperial system we did at least use units that had some relevance to the real world, pounds, tons, square inches, etc. Who amongst us can picture a MegaPascal, or think of a Newton in any way other than the weight of a small apple?

 

[[70521]]

In the Imperial system we did at least use units that had some relevance to the real world, pounds, tons, square inches, etc.

I think that is the problem. Having been taught in metric since 1697 is the real world for me!

 

[Baggywrinkle]

Yes but the basic unit is the Pascal, the force exerted by one Newton on a square metre of surface. A Newton is about a tenth of a kilogram (another 'artificial' basic unit) meaning that a Pascal has so low a value that it is almost meaningless. In the Imperial system we did at least use units that had some relevance to the real world, pounds, tons, square inches, etc. Who amongst us can picture a MegaPascal, or think of a Newton in any way other than the weight of a small apple?

To me a square cm, a mm, a square meter are easy to visualise - a newton is the force exerted by a 100g object due to gravity (about an apple) ... I can visualise that without a problem. Smear the 100g apple on a 1 square meter table top and you have a Pascal. What's the problem? Ten apples on the same table are 10 Pascals. A 100Kg Adult on the table would be a KPa,

It's just your conditioning and what you grew up with - naturally you think it makes more sense, but all measures were 'artificially' chosen by the people who invented them, why is a pound any more 'real' than a kilogramm?

My problem is I have no idea what some of the imperial measures are ... they just seem totally crazy, what's a Furlong? ... an acre is 4840 square yards .... don't even ask me what a rood or a rod is but apparently an acre is 1 furlong x 1 rod ???!?!? so somehow a furlong times a rod comes out at 4840 square yards (an acre). A hundredweight isn't 100 pounds, it's 112 pounds - how does that make sense? A stone is 14 pounds? It's all a nightmare of random numbers and daft names to me.

Metric is just so much easier to convert between units IMO, How many metres is 1.5 Km? ... easy 1500 m ... how many yards is 1.5 miles? ... I'd have to look it up, but as I know a mile is approx 1.6Km then I know 1.5 miles is 2400m - that I can visualise ..... I grew up and was educated solely using metric, we looked at imperial measures out of interest but I have no affinity to them whatsoever, they just seem archaic. Times change and the good old days weren't better, they were just familiar to older people. The next generation of engineers will never have used imperial measures, other than to communicate with the older generation, and will not have your problem.

 

[vyv_cox]

I have no problem at all with it all being based on 10 rather than a variety of different figures. The Imperial, and some versions of metric, were based upon everyday comparisons (a thumb length, pace, bucket of water, barrel capacity) but so many metric values have no such relationship, which makes them more difficult to visualise. I am perfectly happy to calculate in metric, having also been educated in several different versions of it, pre-SI and SI. I notice that many continental engineers still use non SI terms like decanewtons, centimetres, decilitres, presumably for the same reasons.

 

[mjcoon]

... I notice that many continental engineers still use non SI terms like decanewtons, centimetres, decilitres, presumably for the same reasons.

Scientists are just as bad. Kiloparsec, anyone? Angstrom? As for joke measures like "barn" (which I heard used in the background of a recent TV science programme, so I guess still extant)...

Mike.

 

[vyv_cox]

As for joke measures like "barn" (which I heard used in the background of a recent TV science programme, so I guess still extant)...

Mike.

'Barn' is a new one for me. Something to do with hitting a barn door (or not)?

 

[macd]

what's a Furlong? ... an acre is 4840 square yards .... don't even ask me what a rood or a rod is but apparently an acre is 1 furlong x 1 rod ???!?!? so somehow a furlong times a rod comes out at 4840 square yards (an acre).

If I remember correctly, an acre -- 220 x 22 yards (the latter also a cricket pitch :ambivalence -- was the amount a man could realistically plough in a day, given good soil and a willing ox. Surely that helps anyone visualise it? Oh, maybe not.

Like many of us I come from the generation that used all the imperial nonsense whilst growing up, but lived a parallel metric life in (particularly) school physics classes. Yet I'm often astonished by the ignorance of metric in much younger people...the sort that, when told that a litre of water weighs a kilogram, think it's an amazing coincidence. How do they teach this stuff?

In the early days after the supposed UK metrification, a friend went to buy wood from a timber yard in south London.
"I need some two-by-one."
"Sorry, mate, we've gone metric."
"OK then, 50 by 25. How much is it?"
"Half a crown a foot."

 

[GrahamM376]

Times change and the good old days weren't better, they were just familiar to older people. The next generation of engineers will never have used imperial measures, other than to communicate with the older generation, and will not have your problem.

Sorry mate, still loads of imperial sized and threaded stuff around. This morning, in builders merchants Portugal, metric country - sink waste plug please 38mm. Oh, we only sell 1 1/2" and most threaded fittings here are imperial not metric.

 

[Baggywrinkle]

Sorry mate, still loads of imperial sized and threaded stuff around. This morning, in builders merchants Portugal, metric country - sink waste plug please 38mm. Oh, we only sell 1 1/2" and most threaded fittings here are imperial not metric.

They'll get there eventually .... :encouragement: ... but as long as there's demand for replacement parts for ancient stuff imperial will live on I guess.