Fuel Problem !!

Monday 24th of October 2016

On the last trip I changed the fuel filters and was alarmed at the amount of sludge in the primary filter - it was pretty certain that the fuel tank is contaminated with DIESEL BUG !!!

Back in derby I bought the components to make a fuel cleaning system - a 12 volt dc fuel pump - a big filter and spare filter elements - along with all the bits to pipe it up.

Today I assembled it and put it to work - sucking dirty fuel from the tank through the filler cap - filtering it and returning it to the tank.
I used a stiff plastic tube to probe around all the bottom of the tank - it worked really well.

I laid out an absorbent mat in the cockpit to mop up any drips and it did a good job - no fuel leaked into the marina.

The amount of sludge that I filtered out was amazing !! - the filter was a water filter at 5 microns and gradually over 3 or 4 hours the flow slowed to a trickle - I changed the filter element and found the first one covered in slimy black sludge !!
Gradually the black bits flowing down the clear tube to the filter became less and less and I struggled to find any by moving the probe tube around.
I then pumped fuel into two clean five gallon drums with a fresh filter element and caught some fine bits of black stuff that were floating around.

I would like to empty the remaining five gallons but I will have to buy a can for that tomorrow.

All in all - I am pleased to have cleaned a lot of the BUG from the tank without paying an outside contractor to do it and with my filter system costing around fifty pounds - not bad !
I will treat the tank with an additive that eats the BUG to get rid of any that might be stuck to the tank walls.
The problem of diesel bug is here to stay now that bio diesel is added to road fuel and with Blazer not moving far these days the fuel is now a few years old.
Now that I have my filter system I can easily clean the fuel at the start of each season if I want.

Mike.