Need help fixing a stupid mistake I made two weeks ago

[SylvainG]

Yes, you have to empty the tank completely. The water will go to the bottom, but who knows how high?
The problem is that tanks don't usually have the fuel feed at the bottom. Often the bottom is irregular and the fuel tap is up half an inch or so to allow for crud to settle I guess. Anyway, the only way to know yo got the water out is to empty the tank completely.

Just as an aside, sometimes you can shine a powerful flashlight into the tank at night and if you see past the beam it will illuminate the water different color from the fuel. This works even better shining from the side if your tank is not completely opaque on the sides - mine has a seam that allows light to shine in.

rScotty

Thanks. My tank is made of metal and pretty opaque. It's raining right now (it rained all day!) so I'll let the tank alone lol

I also keep a spare filter cup on hand. That clear plastic gets brittle over time and can break if a stick comes up and hits it... usually at the most inopportune time.

Again, don't ask me how I know that.

Good idea. Might be harder to find though, which makes it a good idea to have one on hand.

 

[dlctcg]

Edit: I don't use it much because I find I lose too much diesel trapped in the bottom of the funnel. What do you do with what's trap in the funnel?

I just pour that back into my cans to be filtered the next time around...

 

[azbinder]

If you remove the filter from the cup prior to draining chances are, you can reuse it. Just DO NOT try to start it.

 

[SylvainG]

Any issue if I drain when temperature is a few degrees below freezing?

Would water be simply ice then? The diesel has anti-gel in it.

 

[JC-jetro]

Any issue if I drain when temperature is a few degrees below freezing?

Would water be simply ice then? The diesel has anti-gel in it.

Problem is separation of ice particles and fuel. The simplest thing is to dump the entire tank in a suitable container and use is as fire starter when you need. Starting a diesel with water in the fuel and in cold is just too frustrating and there is chance you would damage retaining nuts on injector trying to bleed the air out. Cutting your loss to lost fuel is your easiest option. Like they say, " no good deed ever goes unpunished", you don't want to mess up your injectors and specially fuel pump.

JC,

Ps. By the way water in filter does not make it dirty. if the filter is clean then i just air dry it under the sun. it will be as good as you found it. Spray some compressed air on it while using a tooth brush to clean the pleats.

 

[SylvainG]

But I won't be able to dump the water if it has iced over, until temperature warms up, right?

 

[hube2]

https://www.amazon.com/Mr-Funnel-AF3CB-Fuel-Filter/dp/B000SOIRCG/ref=sr_1_3?crid=12T8DE3OL0A36&keywords=mr+funnel&qid=1679145876&sprefix=mr+funnel%2Caps%2C125&sr=8-3

Edit: use one of these to separate out the water after you drain the tank, works well

 

[JC-jetro]

But I won't be able to dump the water if it has iced over, until temperature warms up, right?

Ice will float on water or diesel. Best is for mixture to go above freezing point and you just siphon off the fuel just shy of few inches above bottom of your container. let's not over think it too much. Just dump it in to a container for now and get your rig up and running. Again, you will be able to re-purpose all of the contaminated diesel.

JC,

 

[SylvainG]

Ok, I added this small heater to the side of the tank and I've let it run for about 5 hours. That did the trick Diesel flowing was warm to the touch so I guess 5 hours was an overkill lol.

This is how I drained the diesel from the tank. At first, it was just water, then diesel started flowing. I emptied the whole tank, then added about a quart of fresh diesel that I also drained to make sure all water was gone.

I finished by checking the filter. There was no water in it. I emptied the bowl, cleaned it, put fresh diesel, screwed it back. Followed the bleeding instructions. Tractor is now ready for the next snow storm or spring cleaning

Thanks all for you help.

Oh yeah, using my Mr Funnel, I separated the water from the diesel. There was about 200-300 ml worth of water the tank. I'll let it settle down for a week and drain again one more time.

 

[Richard]

Sounds like you got it figured out, good for you.

I've posted this before but to clean my tank, I pulled the bung out of the bottom.....used a (high) pressure sprayer to spray it out, letting the crud drain out the bung.

Took a garden sprayer, filled it with some diesel and used it to "spray" / rinse the inside out, put bung back and never looked back.


I agree with the comments to, "what to do with the residual fuel left in the Mr. Funnel??"

I just put mine back into the fuel container.

 

[JC-jetro]

Success at last, way to go.

 

[SylvainG]

Sounds like you got it figured out, good for you.

I've posted this before but to clean my tank, I pulled the bung out of the bottom.....used a (high) pressure sprayer to spray it out, letting the crud drain out the bung.

Took a garden sprayer, filled it with some diesel and used it to "spray" / rinse the inside out, put bung back and never looked back.


I agree with the comments to, "what to do with the residual fuel left in the Mr. Funnel??"

I just put mine back into the fuel container.

Seeing how easy it was to drain the tank, I might do that next summer. At 2°C, I kept it to the minimum lol.

 

[MinnesotaEric]

In the land of vacation boat country where water in our fuel is our biggest boat problem, I have four clearish five-gallon plastic cans to drain contaminated fuel into, let the water separate, and then to refill boat tanks without the water.

I use a simple 12v mitsubishi electric fuel pump wired to a household wall switch attached to a pair of alligator clip 12v battery leads all mounted to a wood block with 12' of fuel line on both ends of the fuel pump. My defueling pump is the most lent out tool I have.

Thankfully, on my Hough Payloader, there are two fuel drain plugs located on either side of the machine at the lowest part of the 80-gallon fuel tank that can simply be used to drain water out until nothing but diesel is flowing.

 

[SmallChange]

One thing I learned from this post is that diesel fumes are not ignited by the sparks in a vacuum cleaner's brushes. This isn't surprising, but for me at least it also wouldn't have been surprising if they were ignited.

Whoa, wait, it would have been very surprising, if I'd been anywhere near the process.

 

[JC-jetro]

Gas is a lot more combustible liquid than diesel. Gas can flash with spark but diesel is not unless the liquid temp is close to their flash point.The flash point of gas is about -50 F and diesel is about 150 F. Spark starts the combustion in a gas engine but in diesel heat of compression ignites it. That is the reason diesel engine have always a higher compression ratio.

 

[Jstpssng]

I finished by checking the filter. There was no water in it. I emptied the bowl, cleaned it, put fresh diesel, screwed it back. Followed the bleeding instructions. Tractor is now ready for the next snow storm or spring cleaning

I hope that you also screwed the cap back on.

Sorry, I couldn't resist.

 

[dj1701]

Don't feel bad, I was halfway through a 5-gallon fuel can when I realized it was red.

 

[Jstpssng]

Don't feel bad, I was halfway through a 5-gallon fuel can when I realized it was red.

It sounds like he's got it handled. Does that mean we can start talking about our own stupid moves now?

I had the forks on and was loading lumber onto them from my pickup. All of a sudden the tractor started to tip... luckily it stopped when the right fork came up against my tailgate. I took a little weight off, climbed onto the uphill running board and was able to get it back onto 4 tires. After taking about 1/4 of the weight off I was back at a safe level.

Dumb move in a lot of ways, if it had gone over both of my pickups would have been trapped behind it.

 

[hube2]

Stupid things with fuel....

I used to put my fuel cap on the rear fender when filling. Forgot to put it back on. Started the tractor and backed out of the shed. Did not notice it missing until I smelled diesel and looked to see is plashing out and all. Back to the shed to find that I'd run over the cap and crushed it into about 1000 tiny little pieces.

Now I put the cap on the seat while I'm filling the tank.

 

[mike0000]

I recently disconnected my log splitter from my tractor but forgot about the pump disconnect (pto driven) luckily I was looking at the splitter as I started to pull away. That could have cost me a couple of hydraulic lines.

Mike