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"Sticky Diesel" stops several canal boats


Alan de Enfield

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“I can't explain anything to Goliath, whenever we meet he makes be drink loads of beer and we both end up talking bollox.“

 

I never understood why you put marmalade in your engine?


I’m bowing out now, this technical stuff is too much for me while I’m trying to serve up 99’s at the same time. 
 

Those prices, MTB, are not far off what it might cost anyway buying diesel from a marina and doing a 60/40 split. 
Although the hassle of course is another thing of you’re having to take barrels. 
 

 

 

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4 minutes ago, dmr said:

I will happily pay another 20p/litre to save the planet for my kids, and another 20p to make a bit less smoke. 😀

 

 

Me too, and maybe perhaps a thousand other boaters who are able to see the Bigger Picture (a rare trait in human beans). 

 

That just leaves 33,000 others who will still choose vanilla diesel (VD) unless it is positively taken away from them, if my estimate is correct.

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23 minutes ago, roland elsdon said:

If I use hvo does that mean the smoke from my lister will become both green and vegan?

 

Yes, definitely. 

 

Green smoke would be AWESOME, I'm definitely getting some of that HVO stuff!! 

 

 

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33 minutes ago, roland elsdon said:

If I use hvo does that mean the smoke from my lister will become both green and vegan?

 

A relative used to burn recycled chip oil diesel in his van and his exhaust smelled just like a bad chip shop.

Sadly HVO is not vegan, it can contain animal stuff (though I guess the same applies to DinoDiesel), so there is just a chance your exhaust will stink like a pig.

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54 minutes ago, MtB said:

And another question now I'm considering buying a tin of HVO. Will it blend seemlessly with the ordinary diesel currently in my tank or does one need to do a drain and flush to switch over from one fuel to the other? And the same back again if an HVO boat gets caught with no fuel available other than vanilla diesel?

 

It should blend fine with standard diesel, and all its PR says its superior to DinoDiesel in almost every way. The only possible issue is lubricity (so it will probably kill my pump 😀) It might already contain a lubricity additive or maybe we need to add one ourselves, this needs to be clarified.

 

It's possible that the supplier will not actually sell you a 200l drum, especially if you want it delivered to the boat. I believe you have to have a bunded fuel store to do it legally, or maybe 200 or less gets an exception???.   The "free" delivery charge must be significant so maybe if a few boaters get together and get several drums there might be a discount??.

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1 hour ago, MtB said:

And another question now I'm considering buying a tin of HVO. Will it blend seemlessly with the ordinary diesel currently in my tank or does one need to do a drain and flush to switch over from one fuel to the other? And the same back again if an HVO boat gets caught with no fuel available other than vanilla diesel?

HVO is 100% miscible as in it mixes seamlessly with dino diesel ........ and vice versa!

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44 minutes ago, dmr said:

 

It should blend fine with standard diesel, and all its PR says its superior to DinoDiesel in almost every way. The only possible issue is lubricity (so it will probably kill my pump 😀) It might already contain a lubricity additive or maybe we need to add one ourselves, this needs to be clarified.

 

It's possible that the supplier will not actually sell you a 200l drum, especially if you want it delivered to the boat. I believe you have to have a bunded fuel store to do it legally, or maybe 200 or less gets an exception???.   The "free" delivery charge must be significant so maybe if a few boaters get together and get several drums there might be a discount??.

Lubricity has always been at the head of my list of diesel worries since the sulphur has been progressively removed to the point where we now purchase ULSD (the full fat variety is still available for marine use btw).

 

HVO has much the same (limited) level of natural lubricity as mineral diesel, if anything slightly less as its sulphur content is sub 5 ppm whilst ULSD sits between 5 and 10 ppm. So in common with ULSD it relies on an additive. Something that makes me slightly nervous with regard to the 60s-designed engine that powers my boat. I'd therefore be inclined to include my own additive long-term. Unlike dino diesel, HVO contains no aromatics or minerals which helps with its cleaner burn.

 

One irony in relation to the addition of 1st generation FAME dino diesel in its current B7 content form is that at only 7%  it actually gives a similar level of lubricity as the old full fat, high sulphur stuff.

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24 minutes ago, Up-Side-Down said:

HVO is 100% miscible as in it mixes seamlessly with dino diesel ........ and vice versa!

 

Brilliant, thank you. 

 

Now to see if Crown will deliver a single drum of it to a bridge number on the southern Oxford....

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3 hours ago, dmr said:

 

A relative used to burn recycled chip oil diesel in his van and his exhaust smelled just like a bad chip shop.

Sadly HVO is not vegan, it can contain animal stuff (though I guess the same applies to DinoDiesel), so there is just a chance your exhaust will stink like a pig.

I can get at least 20 drums in the hold, ballast , green exhaust and smelling of bacon. Who needs a fat boat in the wrong place to make an impact.

I think this is a potential moneyspinner.

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52 minutes ago, roland elsdon said:

 

I can get at least 20 drums in the hold, ballast , green exhaust and smelling of bacon. Who needs a fat boat in the wrong place to make an impact.

I think this is a potential moneyspinner.

On that basis why not drop four IBCs in the hold and get the stuff at a cheaper rate!

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  • 10 months later...
On 25/08/2021 at 20:34, PBevan said:

[chomp]

An interesting observation has been, the yellow sticky coating slowly formed on a sample of metal left a a jar of the contaminated diesel. It took several days to develop and is microscopically thin but incredibly sticky. 

My current test, once the injectors and pump are back from the refurbishment company is to:

1) remove and dispose of all the diesel, 180ltrs

2) clean the tank and pipes

3) replace the two filters

4) put the injectors and pump back on the engine

5 start the engine after normal bleeding process.

OK this sounds very similar to my current situation.  Question: how do you clean the tank and fuel lines?  And indeed the lift and priming pump?  Will running through with Diesel Injector Cleaner mixed in clean diesel from a fuel can help?

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1 hour ago, CapitalD said:

OK this sounds very similar to my current situation.  Question: how do you clean the tank and fuel lines?  And indeed the lift and priming pump?  Will running through with Diesel Injector Cleaner mixed in clean diesel from a fuel can help?

https://www.marine16.co.uk/fuel-treatments/dbt or similar. 

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1 hour ago, CapitalD said:

So this biocide breaks down the sticky residue that is gumming the valves in my lift & priming pump?

I believe that diesel bug tends to block the filters, but have no first hand experiencve as have not had the bug. If you are getting a residue coating the surfaces of your pumps then it's probably not bug but another issue that is less well understood, I do have experience of this but dont yet understand it. Stripping and mechanically cleaning the components might be the only fix.

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Worst diesel bug I ever had was from using aviation kerosine .....which at that time was free ,as it must be replaced every month with fresh fuel...........seems a bug loves the lube used in the plane fuel.

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8 hours ago, dmr said:

I believe that diesel bug tends to block the filters, but have no first hand experiencve as have not had the bug. If you are getting a residue coating the surfaces of your pumps then it's probably not bug but another issue that is less well understood, I do have experience of this but dont yet understand it. Stripping and mechanically cleaning the components might be the only fix.

The primary problem is that the valves inside the lift & priming pumps are sticking.  Attached is a picture of the priming pump with the top cut off.  The tank was cleaned and the fuel polished last summer.  The issue is that the valves had to be cracked open mechanically, which they did with a pop.  The new lift pump and priming pump have only be in 3 weeks, so I was hoping to be able to clean the fuel lines and these components rather than have to replace everything.   Once the fuel is moving the engine runs fine all day.

PrimingPump_s.jpg

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I had a similar problem last summer - I didn’t open the priming pump, but when the engine was cold on occasion pushing the pump down would stick down, a sharp tap or three would eventually free it.  I put double the recommended dose of diesel system cleaner in the fuel.  The frequency of sticking reduce and after about using 100 litres of dosed fuel the problem went away.  Touch wood for good……..

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6 minutes ago, Chewbacka said:

I had a similar problem last summer - I didn’t open the priming pump, but when the engine was cold on occasion pushing the pump down would stick down, a sharp tap or three would eventually free it.  I put double the recommended dose of diesel system cleaner in the fuel.  The frequency of sticking reduce and after about using 100 litres of dosed fuel the problem went away.  Touch wood for good……..

That will be my next attempt.  I got a pop pressing down on the priming pump (presumably the exit valve) but I couldn't get the inlet to free up.

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I guess you just follow the high dosage rate for contaminated fuel as long as you can initially devise a way to get the fuel to start flowing. 

 

As has been implied earlier in this thread, 'sticky diesel' is a slightly different problem from straight forward diesel bug contamination and back in the early days, when the issue first reared its ugly head via an RCR report, the chemists amongst the IWA Sustainable  Boating Group took a long hard look at the problem. Digging around in past correspondence this is what I've turned up:

 

"Transesterification (the process by which 1stgeneration FAME diesel is manufactured) produces some pretty decent glycerine as a by-product and I'm told much sort after by the cosmetics industry. As I said before, it's never 100% washed out, remains dissolved in the fuel and then starts to drop out if the fuel is unused for any length of time, particularly in cold weather I believe".

 

"However, that’s only part of the story. If that’s all that was happening, the residual glycerol would re-dissolve when things warm up again, whereas this seems to be predominantly a one way trip with time.

 

I think the dominant process (probably made even nastier and stickier by the glycerol add-on) will be various chemical decomposition reactions in the FAME itself.  The most obvious one will be slow hydrolysis of the long chain organic esters that make up FAME, due to moisture in the fuel tanks. Irritatingly, this reaction is acid-catalysed so will be weakly auto-catalytic (i.e with time it slowly speeds up). The product of this will be methanol, and long chain fatty acids. These will tend to form a scummy ‘snot’ congregating wherever the acid end of the molecule can find anything wet with water, whilst the paraffinic end buries itself into the nearby diesel phase.   

 

In addition, the double bond in the fatty backbone will slowly oxidise, further linking to goo together.

 

Add a trace of glycerol and you’ll get a vile mess.

 

I was then wondering what to use to try and wash this horrible goo out of a fuel system, and I’m struggling a little.  There are options for dissolving these things in the literature, but some of the chemicals involved would attack certain seals, and things like plastic filter bowls. Also very flammable/toxic.

 

If you want me to come up with some suggestions, I could, but considerable care would need to be employed using materials like acetone, hexane or chloroform!

 

Best bet is to get the wretched stuff drummed off the canal system asap"!!

 

 

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  • 2 months later...

So, finally, my solution to all this.

It turned out that the sticky residue is soluble in diesel, so I got a gallon of white from the local garage and a bulb-pump (they type used with outboards) and pushed it through my fuel lines, including the lift pump and priming pump.  Then I ran the engine on the white to draw it though the injector pump too.

The main problem was caused by the sticky residue gluing the inlet valves shut and the spring pressure from the pump insufficient to pull them open.  A positive pressure from the other side solved that.

I drained the main fuel tank and washed it out with a 50:50 mix of white diesel and paraffin using a garden spray.  Using a temporary tank linked into the fuel and spill lines, I could then drive the boat to our nearest marina to put some red into the tank.

Fingers crossed that I never have to do all this again!

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20 minutes ago, CapitalD said:

So, finally, my solution to all this.

It turned out that the sticky residue is soluble in diesel, so I got a gallon of white from the local garage and a bulb-pump (they type used with outboards) and pushed it through my fuel lines, including the lift pump and priming pump.  Then I ran the engine on the white to draw it though the injector pump too.

The main problem was caused by the sticky residue gluing the inlet valves shut and the spring pressure from the pump insufficient to pull them open.  A positive pressure from the other side solved that.

I drained the main fuel tank and washed it out with a 50:50 mix of white diesel and paraffin using a garden spray.  Using a temporary tank linked into the fuel and spill lines, I could then drive the boat to our nearest marina to put some red into the tank.

Fingers crossed that I never have to do all this again!

That's excellent news. I hope that RCR pick up in this.

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  • 1 month later...
On 09/12/2020 at 16:29, ditchcrawler said:

This was posted on FB this afternoon, its from a diesel filter image.png.4f5d12c7e97650ae7524faa62b511cec.png

I have found this in my fuel guard filter today ! The separate washable filter was clogged solid, I had to wash it with petrol to get the sticky residue off, we had a bit of a frost last night. 

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On 08/07/2022 at 14:46, Up-Side-Down said:

I guess you just follow the high dosage rate for contaminated fuel as long as you can initially devise a way to get the fuel to start flowing. 

 

As has been implied earlier in this thread, 'sticky diesel' is a slightly different problem from straight forward diesel bug contamination and back in the early days, when the issue first reared its ugly head via an RCR report, the chemists amongst the IWA Sustainable  Boating Group took a long hard look at the problem. Digging around in past correspondence this is what I've turned up:

 

"Transesterification (the process by which 1stgeneration FAME diesel is manufactured) produces some pretty decent glycerine as a by-product and I'm told much sort after by the cosmetics industry. As I said before, it's never 100% washed out, remains dissolved in the fuel and then starts to drop out if the fuel is unused for any length of time, particularly in cold weather I believe".

 

"However, that’s only part of the story. If that’s all that was happening, the residual glycerol would re-dissolve when things warm up again, whereas this seems to be predominantly a one way trip with time.

 

I think the dominant process (probably made even nastier and stickier by the glycerol add-on) will be various chemical decomposition reactions in the FAME itself.  The most obvious one will be slow hydrolysis of the long chain organic esters that make up FAME, due to moisture in the fuel tanks. Irritatingly, this reaction is acid-catalysed so will be weakly auto-catalytic (i.e with time it slowly speeds up). The product of this will be methanol, and long chain fatty acids. These will tend to form a scummy ‘snot’ congregating wherever the acid end of the molecule can find anything wet with water, whilst the paraffinic end buries itself into the nearby diesel phase.   

 

In addition, the double bond in the fatty backbone will slowly oxidise, further linking to goo together.

 

Add a trace of glycerol and you’ll get a vile mess.

 

I was then wondering what to use to try and wash this horrible goo out of a fuel system, and I’m struggling a little.  There are options for dissolving these things in the literature, but some of the chemicals involved would attack certain seals, and things like plastic filter bowls. Also very flammable/toxic.

 

If you want me to come up with some suggestions, I could, but considerable care would need to be employed using materials like acetone, hexane or chloroform!

 

Best bet is to get the wretched stuff drummed off the canal system asap"!!

 

 

Petrol dissolved and cleaned my fuel guard washable filter today, unfortunately I have a tank and lines to sort out. I can see me draining it and cutting a hatch to gain access.

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