Red Diesel - Colour

[Tony Brooks]

20 hours ago, WJM said:

I drew off some diesel from the bottom of the tank recently. As expected, there was a layer of 'gunk'. But it has settled for a few days now and I notice that the stuff at the top is, how shall I say... less 'red wine' and more 'Gazpacho soup'. Is there something wrong?

 

I should mention - I dose every fill very heavily with Marine 16.

 

Here are the images of my fuel that I showed under the "Alde pump" topic in equipment.

If you compare my photos with yours then yours do look cloudy BUT your container has much thicker walls that milk bottles so at this stage I would not like to say too much about the colour of your fuel. I support the opinion the apparent cloudiness may well just be the container so draw some off into glass. I say this because I can not see any other signs of emulsification like the lighter bands above the black gunk in my photo.

Think about the colour that water in such containers appears to have yet we know water is clear even although it appears white/cloudy through the container wall.

The lack of an obvious emulsification layer and no visible signs of floating "bits" makes me suspect your fuel is in a slightly better condition than mine and all I am going to do is up the syphoning fro the tank to twice a year until the amount of black gunk is very much reduced.

I certainly do not think it will be worth paying for fuel polishing for either tank but it is worth watching carefully.

[Keeping Up]

I use the additive supplied by Tankbusters, which turns out to be re-badged Marine 16, and certainly if I add a strong dose it turns the diesel slightly cloudy and makes it look slightly brownish. So it may be just this in your case too.

[Momac]

5 hours ago, Naughty Cal said:

What has made you switch from Marine 16?

I wanted to try a fuel additive that absorbs any water as I did not favour the idea of water sitting at the bottom of the tank. I looked at Fuel Set but then found Clearwinner by chance. 

I have not had any fuel problems.

[WJM]

Apologies for the slow response, I have not been over to the boat for a while. Some pictures:

 

The first picture shows the diesel from a jerry can from that I keep for topping up - wine red. The other two pictures show the diesel I took from the boat tank and allowed to settle for a couple of weeks - positively tomato soup. The diesel from the tank has been heavily dosed with Marine 16 Complete and and it has been supplying both the engine and the central heating with no obvious problems.

Does anyone have any thoughts on why it looks like this?

 

 

[ditchcrawler]

Some time ago I bought some fuel additive to clean the injectors etc as sold in car accessory shops. The next thing I knew was the stainless steel water heating coil in my Dickinson started leaking with what looked like electrical erosion on the pipe. Put a new pipe in and not added anything to the fuel since and had no problem.

[Tony Brooks]

I am not sure what anyone can say now unless they are really into the effects of age on diesel and the effects of Marine 16. We were told by someone that they thought Marine 16 changed the colour of diesel. We also do not know the effect on the dye of storing diesel over the winter.

If the second two images show small particles in the fuel then I would be concerned but less so if it is only a colour change. I there do seem to be particles then I would change the filters and open the old ones to see exactly what they have caught - if anything.  If they are clean with little sign of a build up on the filter paper then I would just carry on and monitor the situation over the next few tank fills. If there are signs of slime, jelly, or a build up on the filter paper then I would bee taking action. I think I would talk to Tankbusters .

 

 

 

[ditchcrawler]

14 minutes ago, Tony Brooks said:

I am not sure what anyone can say now unless they are really into the effects of age on diesel and the effects of Marine 16. We were told by someone that they thought Marine 16 changed the colour of diesel. We also do not know the effect on the dye of storing diesel over the winter.

If the second two images show small particles in the fuel then I would be concerned but less so if it is only a colour change. I there do seem to be particles then I would change the filters and open the old ones to see exactly what they have caught - if anything.  If they are clean with little sign of a build up on the filter paper then I would just carry on and monitor the situation over the next few tank fills. If there are signs of slime, jelly, or a build up on the filter paper then I would bee taking action. I think I would talk to Tankbusters .

 

 

 

I have a gerry can of red diesel that must be 10 years old on the boat, I took a sample from it last week anf it is as bright and pink as the last lot of diesel I bought, I couldn't see any difference

[Robbo]

1 hour ago, WJM said:

Apologies for the slow response, I have not been over to the boat for a while. Some pictures:

 

The first picture shows the diesel from a jerry can from that I keep for topping up - wine red. The other two pictures show the diesel I took from the boat tank and allowed to settle for a couple of weeks - positively tomato soup. The diesel from the tank has been heavily dosed with Marine 16 Complete and and it has been supplying both the engine and the central heating with no obvious problems.

Does anyone have any thoughts on why it looks like this?

 

 

 

This post from YBW may help..   The OP in YBW used a 2 micron filter to polish to solve.

http://www.ybw.com/forums/showthread.php?477111-Cloudy-diesel&p=6052485#post6052485

Quote

And this is the rapid reply from Marine 16.

"The hazy fuel is most likely saturated or emulsified, the chemicals do not turn it hazy, indeed DFC contains a very small amount of demulsifier to help fuel separation during normal conditions.

It can happen that the mechanical action of free water and diesel going through a pump will cause it to be hazy, made worse with modern biodiesel that readily absorbs water.

Water from the bottom of the tank should be carefully separated out then, if required, the fuel passed through a fine filter to “polish” it, although polishing is only necessary for fuel that has been stored for a long time. Water is the real enemy of fuel.

Normally the best way is to add a demulsifier. If it’s not too hazy and you have an old engine it would normally cope with some saturated fuel, a modern common rail engine however is a lot more sensitive to fuel cleanliness/quality."

Edited April 9, 2018 by Robbo

[jake_crew]

It has been cold, though not recently.

Could the cloudyness be waxing ?

Waxing is reversible, but needs to be proper warm for day or so to re-dissolve.