Diesel fuel pruce up

[RalphVa]

Somehow, the thought came into my mind last night. The diesel fuel in my generator's 60 gallon tank is getting on to near 8 years. Had our 1983 Benz stored for 4 years once. Came back and found the diesel in it rather BROWN.

Wondering what some of you have done to freshen up old diesel.

If they made it, pumping it out and through a clay filter would work rather well. One of the old methods of cleaning up oil, actually the making of base oil, was to run it through an atapulgus clay filter. Before that, it would undergo acid treatment to get most of the aromatic oil out of it. Don't need that, of course.

A 5 gpm rig pumping from the bottom of the tank to the top for 15 minutes would get all of it.

Ralph

 

[CADplans]

I would put an ad on Craigs List, and GIVE the fuel away, and then buy new,,

That new fuel is cheap compared to replacing an injector pump,,,

 

[oosik]

Do you have fence posts that could be treated.......

 

[Hay Dude]

Somehow, the thought came into my mind last night. The diesel fuel in my generator's 60 gallon tank is getting on to near 8 years. Had our 1983 Benz stored for 4 years once. Came back and found the diesel in it rather BROWN.

Wondering what some of you have done to freshen up old diesel.

If they made it, pumping it out and through a clay filter would work rather well. One of the old methods of cleaning up oil, actually the making of base oil, was to run it through an atapulgus clay filter. Before that, it would undergo acid treatment to get most of the aromatic oil out of it. Don't need that, of course.

A 5 gpm rig pumping from the bottom of the tank to the top for 15 minutes would get all of it.

Ralph

Get rid of it. Can cause incalculable damage

 

[s219]

Diesel can be stored a long time if you treat it properly (biocide, etc). Diesel fuel can be "polished", whereby it is run through filters to clean up any contamination or issues, and to separate out water (which may accumulate from condensation). That is commonly done for commercial generator storage tanks. There are companies that offer polishing as a mobile service. You could probably rig up a system to do it yourself.

My generator fuel is about 6 years old, with some newer mixed in. I plan to start using it in my tractor and then cycle in some fresh diesel. The fuel looks fine to me after all that time.

 

[RalphVa]

Good to hear. Talked to my neighbor (who has a bigger tractor) and the wife about it.

Gonna take a 2 gallon sample to use in the tractor. Will see what it looks like.

May just use it down in my tractor. Normally would take about a year (60 gallons and 0.6 gph and about 100 hrs/yr), but lately have had heavy usage because of our war on invasives.

Got 20 gallons in 5 gallon containers. That will run the generator for over 3 days (0.25 gph) if its tank is completely empty at start of power failuure.

We'll see what that 2 gallons looks like.

Turns out it's only 7 years old.

Took the 2 gallons out. Looks good, essentially like fresh stuff, a tad yellow. So, will continue about every 3 hours on the tractor to take 2 gallons from the Isuzu's tank and refuel the tractor until I get down to around 20 gallons left. Then pour the stored 20 gallons in continers into it. Make another trip and get 20 more. Probably be about a year.

That diesel stored for 4 years in the 240D was before ULSD. The processing to take out the sulfur also removes the major part of any bad actors that would turn the diesel. Say people sayings all kinds of bad things about taking the sulfur out, that it is a stabilizer. What's worse before ULSD are the little bits of aromatic molecules left there. They destabilize it far worse than sulfur every stabilized it. Don't actually believe sulfur stabilized it though.


Ralph