Water in diesel?

[tomfifield]

I added some diesel to my tank and I think the can I used to get it in may have had some water in it. Shortly after adding the diesel the tractor smoked and stalled. I drained the fuel filter and some of the diesel from the line. I am going to see if I can get some sort of fuel dry for diesel to add to the tank. Any ideas on what I need to do?

[Massey man]

we had the same problem with our tractor we had to drain the tank itself out and at first it was just water and then the diesel started to get a darker red until it was pure diesel. if your tractor is hard to start i would suggest in looen the injectors to bleed the air out of the fuel system.

[LBrown59]

I added some diesel to my tank and
I think the can I used to get it in may have had some water in it.
Shortly after adding the diesel the tractor smoked and stalled. I drained the fuel filter and some of the diesel from the line. I am going to see if I can get some sort of fuel dry for diesel to add to the tank. Any ideas on what I need to do?

This is where a Mr Funnel water seperator funnel would have come in handy .
When I was using cans I always used the funnel when pouring from the cans.
Now that I have a fuel storage rig with a pump I don't use the funnel as the system has it's own water seperation filter.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

[tomfifield]

Thanks I will give it a try.

[Trails2004]

Use Power Service in the "white bottle" to treat your fuel. This will help with the water.

[ModMech]

There is nothing commercially available that will remove the water from your fuel tank that will not also do harm to the fuel system.

DIESEL fuel injectors and pump are made to pass only one thing, DIESEL. Water, ethanol, methanol, etc WILL damage the internal parts of the pump and or injectors. The more water the worse it will be.

The only "real" solution is to drain off the water from the bottom of the tank.

[RalphVa]

"Fuel dry" is just alcohol. Don't use it in diesel.

All this stuff is keep the water from freezing. It won't keep it from separating out of solution and causing running problems.

Ralph

[atgreene]

Fill the new filter with Power service in the white bottle, run the tractor. If it quits, change the filter and repeat until you work the water out.

FWIW, if you have water in a fuel can leave it outside, the water will freeze. Dump the fuel off then you can deal with the ice.

[Soundguy]

"Fuel dry" is just alcohol. Don't use it in diesel.

All this stuff is keep the water from freezing. It won't keep it from separating out of solution and causing running problems.

Ralph

I think you missed a class....

alcohol is a polar solvent.. water is polar.. it will be carried in soloution. Sure.. you can have 'too much' water in the tank and once the soloution is saturated it won't carry more.. but that's a whole different story about seperating back out. the idea is to get it out.. the faster the better.. mechanical means are the best.. IE.. drain it off..

soundguy

[Richard]

I added some diesel to my tank and I think the can I used to get it in may have had some water in it. Shortly after adding the diesel the tractor smoked and stalled. I drained the fuel filter and some of the diesel from the line. I am going to see if I can get some sort of fuel dry for diesel to add to the tank. Any ideas on what I need to do?

My understanding is a partial tank of fuel (either can or on tractor) will have a higher propensity to have water condense inside it than a tank that is full???

I don't know that to be true, just something I once read. If accurate then it might benefit you to try to keep your tank(s) as full as possible.

I've got two glass bowls on my backhoe's fuel system.

Had some issues with it running very strange one day and got curious. As it turned out, both bowls were pretty much full with water. They are 20 some years old and were VERY difficult to see through so you couldn't tell if there was diesel in them, water in them or jelly beans in them

Once I figured out the water problem, I took them off and cleaned them, getting all that accumulated junk off the inside of them so I could see through them.