Water in Diesel Question

[Bacchus]

Original Post by Pete of Lazy Susan

I am new to the Trawler Forum. Today, I added 100 gallons of diesel to my Mainship Pilot. It has 2 tanks. I put 50 gallons in each tank. I then forgot to put the caps back on. I am in the nyc area and am ready to dry dock it for the winter. So right after fueling it up for the winter, I then started hosing it down to wash off the salt from my final cruise of the season. My guess is no more than a gallon of water went into the fuel tanks.
Besides additives, any suggestions.
There is still plenty of diesel (and water) in the nyc area
Pete of Lazy Susan

[As an update I moved the Water in Diesel question and responses to a new / separate thread in the General Discussion.
This should be easier to follow related responses and make it easier to search / find if others have similar question in the future]
My apologies for messing up the original post / poster identity in the process

 

[Mobcat]

Don’t worry about it, that’s what Racors are for, I suppose I have 4 in series with a water monitor on the first and second but still you should be able to monitor when you relaunch or if possible just pump the first 20lt to a can and check it after it’s sat for the winter and water has sat on pickups.

 

[CharlieO.]

I am new to the Trawler Forum. Today, I added 100 gallons of diesel to my Mainship Pilot. It has 2 tanks. I put 50 gallons in each tank. I then forgot to put the caps back on. I am in the nyc area and am ready to dry dock it for the winter. So right after fueling it up for the winter, I then started hosing it down to wash off the salt from my final cruise of the season. My guess is no more than a gallon of water went into the fuel tanks.
Besides additives, any suggestions.
There is still plennty of diesel (and water) in the nyc area
Pete of Lazy Susan

Just be sure you are familiar with how to drain the water from your racors and have it accessible the first couple times out.

Also, I don't recommend diluting diesel with water to save $$$.

 

[Bacchus]

Pete of Lazy Susan
[EDIT] - I took the liberty of moving your question and follow-up responses to a new / separate thread vs leaving it buried in the Diesel News thread.

Welcome aboard TF.
Your question being raised in this thread may get only passing responses.
I had water in my 34HT tank (won't bore you with details why) and dealt with it.
I would try to eliminate it sooner rather than waiting.
Water / diesel interface is where unwanted stuff grows and once established can be a bigger issue to deal with.
I disconnected eng feed line and drained off several 5 gal buckets of fuel / water mix, let them settle / separate and dumped the water after final clean up with oil pads.
I borrowed an aux fuel pump, disconnected my engine feed and return line and did a temp hook up of pump and an aux water separating filter. Ran the pump extensively until I no longer got any water coming out.
I then took the boat out and ran it while monitoring racors frequently. I got good at predicting the time it would take to notice water and drain without overloading the racor. I treated with biocides and continued to monitor and drain. I then changed racor filter elements.
All went well and I never had bio growth problems.

 

[Bmarler]

I am new to the Trawler Forum. Today, I added 100 gallons of diesel to my Mainship Pilot. It has 2 tanks. I put 50 gallons in each tank. I then forgot to put the caps back on. I am in the nyc area and am ready to dry dock it for the winter. So right after fueling it up for the winter, I then started hosing it down to wash off the salt from my final cruise of the season. My guess is no more than a gallon of water went into the fuel tanks.
Besides additives, any suggestions.
There is still plennty of diesel (and water) in the nyc area
Pete of Lazy Susan

As has been suggested, take care of it asap. You’d be surprised how much water could have gotten in. You’d be draining racors every twenty minutes.
Try to see if there’s a drain tap or sump on the tank where the water might settle. It’ll get there fairly quickly actually. If no drain, you’ll have to use the pickup hose to the engines to drain it off as described by Bacchus.
Or, hire a fuel polishing service.

 

[backinblue]

Good advice by Bacchus, deal with it sooner than later so the bugs don't grow much. It's surprisingly easy to forget the caps when filling 2 taks and dealing with everything in a hurry at the fuel dock. Maybe a simple tag to clip to your ignition key when fueling to remind you to check before re-starting would help. Store it with the deck key for the caps.

 

[OldDan1943]

Good advice by Bacchus, deal with it sooner than later so the bugs don't grow much. It's surprisingly easy to forget the caps when filling 2 taks and dealing with everything in a hurry at the fuel dock. Maybe a simple tag to clip to your ignition key when fueling to remind you to check before re-starting would help. Store it with the deck key for the caps.

Best advice: get someone to polish the fuel ASAP both now and then in the spring. make sure you put in the proper additive both time.

Do you have a sight glass for for each tank.
Dont complain too much. Consider it your punishment for forgetting to put the caps back in place.
A lot depends on the how you get the fuel out of the tank. The AT34 has a pick butt weld to the bottom each tank. Other manufactures have tubes from the top. Others have a bottom tank in a small low conntection pocket.

 

[Hippocampus]

As said remove the water any way possible asap. Put in the “heavy” dose of your favorite biocide. Then let the boat sit for awhile. Bugs grow at the interface between the water and fuel. Even though with the first draining you think you’ve gotten out the water it’s likely you haven’t. Unless you’ve drained very slowly the contains of the tank have been agitated so it likely there’s some water left. Worthwhile to drain that hopefully small amount off with a second drain. If you’re not running through racors you’re done if so polishing is in your future.
For our current boat the main engine draws from port tank and genset from starboard. Even though there’s a large cross over the port tank had water and growth shutting down the genset when we first bought her. Fortunately she’s appropriately vavled. Was told to do the above. It worked beautifully and we didn’t need to polish. Apparently killing the growth first and draining twice to allow separation in between is the key. You also want to draw off a bunch of what you think is clean fuel with each draining so make sure you can dispose it and the water appropriately. Yard may charge you a disposable fee.
P.S. if you can use weight to tilt the tanks so they’re lower where you are draining. You’ll leave less water in the tank that way.

 

[koliver]

I am new to the Trawler Forum. Today, I added 100 gallons of diesel to my Mainship Pilot. It has 2 tanks. I put 50 gallons in each tank. I then forgot to put the caps back on. I am in the nyc area and am ready to dry dock it for the winter. So right after fueling it up for the winter, I then started hosing it down to wash off the salt from my final cruise of the season. My guess is no more than a gallon of water went into the fuel tanks.
Besides additives, any suggestions.
There is still plennty of diesel (and water) in the nyc area
Pete of Lazy Susan

Unless your deck is designed to direct the wash water into the fuel fills, you won't likely get much into your tanks simply by leaving the fills open. I have done similar things, and been surprised how little actual damage was done. Your Racors should take care of it.

 

[Lazy Susan]

Thanks to all for the good advice.
I will introduce myself formally on the Welcome Mat soon.

 

[rgano]

Pete and Bob, where do the engines on your boats draw fuel from the tanks, through stand pipes or from ports at the lower aft ends of the tanks like my 30 Pilot II? If the latter, the ability to remove the water in enhanced. Disconnecting the feed lines and letting the fuel flow really fast or using a pump like Don did will help entrain any water lurking near the outlet. In my case the tanks are on shelves with a nearby drop off to the keel area allowing for this operation sans pump.

 

[jgwinks]

I friend did the same thing with the gas tank in his sailboat. Fix was time consuming but pretty easy. We took a squeeze bulb hose like on an outboard motor and slid a length of coat hanger wire up the intake side to make it stiff. Pulled the fuel gauge sender out of the tank and stuck the hose in to the bottom. Many squeezes later we had a couple gallons of water in jugs and finally got to clean gas. Some water was probably left behind but not so much his filter couldn't handle it. He did have the tank cleaned later but this got him back up and running. We were 100 miles from home port at the time.

 

[jleonard]

I got water in my fuel once with my old (1978) mainship over the winter layup in CT. (From condensation and I knew the reason).
Idling for 10 minutes after getting launched, the Racor 900 bowl was almost up to the point where it would have been going into the engine in a few more minutes.
I was drawing from the starboard tank, so I was able to remove the fuel pickup tube, insert a squeeze ball rig I made up, and by listing the boat to get the water into one corner I was able to pump out the water into a one-gallon plastic milk jug.
The first 2 quarts were solid water, then I pumped about a quart of pure diesel before I stopped.
Never saw water again in the Racor.


Don't rely strictly on the Racor to get the water out. You may get lucky or it may burn you.

Edit: Looks like Mr Winks beat me to it. LOL

 

[rgano]

jgwinks, that stiffening of the intake side with close hanger wire was inspired! We went looking around the house recently for a close hanger for another purpose, but all we could find was fat plastic ones. Save those old wire ones!

 

[jgwinks]

jgwinks, that stiffening of the intake side with close hanger wire was inspired! We went looking around the house recently for a close hanger for another purpose, but all we could find was fat plastic ones. Save those old wire ones!

Yeah, I'd be hard pressed to find one now too. All we have now in the house are plastic and wood. I try to keep one on the boat though, they do come in handy.

 

[jleonard]

Yeah, I'd be hard pressed to find one now too. All we have now in the house are plastic and wood. I try to keep one on the boat though, they do come in handy.

Yes I keep a few around for whatever as they do come in handy.
I didn't think of that when I pumped mine, rather I used a length of copper tubing bent in the direction I needed.

 

[Bacchus]

That reminds me... good place/ time for a caution.
Do not use a length of copper tubing to reach & pump contaminated fuel from an aluminum tank.
My understanding is doesn't take much copper rubbed off onto the alum that, in the presence of water establishes a galvanic cell that results in one or more pin holes in the alum tank.
No first hand experience but I did take note when reading about this. Use of tubing less likely to cause problems when the end has absection of rubber hose attached.

 

[warfdog]

I would side with Bacchus on getting the water out of there completely asap. Ten years ago I purchased a new Bayliner motor yacht with twin Cummins 6bta Turbo Diesels each fed off it's own tank. When the boat was delivered to me the port fuel fill cap was off and shortly after I noticed that the racor on that engine was filled with water. Contacted the dealer and he paid to have a fuel polishing guy pump the tank, but some water must have reached the engine.

Thought after that that I was off the hook but about a month later after trucking the boat down the coast to SF and splashing it the port engine failed. Cummins West service came out and pulled the big mechanical injection pump and all the injectors and said the pump was trashed with about 50 hours on it. That was a $10k part, luckily Cummins covered it on warranty but I had to pay to have three injectors replaced.

No doubt that the failure was caused by the engine eating water mixed in with the diesel. Even the fuel polishing didn't clean it out. If I had to do it again I would insist on completely draining and vacuuming out the tank to get to all the water.

 

[bgillroy]

Pete. Unless you want engine shutdown at the most inopertune times repeatedly hire marine fuel company have them drain both/ clean fuel and get rid water. Longer you leave in tanks bottom sludge will get worse and worse as bugs die.

Bill Gillroy
Maka Honu
42 pilot house trawler

 

[backinblue]

Pete and Bob, where do the engines on your boats draw fuel from the tanks, through stand pipes or from ports at the lower aft ends of the tanks like my 30 Pilot II? If the latter, the ability to remove the water in enhanced. Disconnecting the feed lines and letting the fuel flow really fast or using a pump like Don did will help entrain any water lurking near the outlet. In my case the tanks are on shelves with a nearby drop off to the keel area allowing for this operation sans pump.

Like yours Rich, mine draw out of the lower aft end of the tanks.

 

[FWT]

I friend did the same thing with the gas tank in his sailboat. Fix was time consuming but pretty easy. We took a squeeze bulb hose like on an outboard motor and slid a length of coat hanger wire up the intake side to make it stiff. Pulled the fuel gauge sender out of the tank and stuck the hose in to the bottom. Many squeezes later we had a couple gallons of water in jugs and finally got to clean gas. Some water was probably left behind but not so much his filter couldn't handle it. He did have the tank cleaned later but this got him back up and running. We were 100 miles from home port at the time.

Great idea. The simple alternative might be to use a manual (hand pump) oil extractor normally used for an oil change. They have plastic hoses too, so the advice to beware of copper against aluminum becomes moot.

It would also be interesting to know if that might pick up and clean out any sludge from the bottom.

 

[Bmarler]

Great idea. The simple alternative might be to use a manual (hand pump) oil extractor normally used for an oil change. They have plastic hoses too, so the advice to beware of copper against aluminum becomes moot.

It would also be interesting to know if that might pick up and clean out any sludge from the bottom.

Using the hand vacuum pump to pick up sludge? I don’t think so. It’s just too thick to travel up that plastic tube easily. I’ve picked up some minor sludgy stuff but it’s really slow going.

 

[C lectric]

I have used copper tubing to suck tanks for cleaning.
However , I added a short piece of hose so the copper end never contacted the tha metal of the tank. I used an Oetiker ear clamp to hold the hose firmly. Just cut the hose on a bit of an angle to avoid the chance or the hose end hitting the tank bottom squarely and sealing itself. Doesn't take much of an angle and does not need to be cut entirely across the end, about half angled.

I still have and still use it .

 

[Lazy Susan]

Mine draws out of the aft too. I ran the boat for an hour today and the racor was still all diesel.
Thanks to all for the advice.
We have summer weather in NY area right now and trying to get out a few more times before the season ends.

 

[Bonedoc]

I would agree with getting both tanks pumped out ASAP. I had it done for about $300.

You can decide if you want to discard the fuel(ouch $$) or have them filter it and return to to the tanks.

Obviously starting with clean dry tanks and then fresh diesel is the ideal.

 

[Ron Stevenson]

Do this first!

Do this first! This tip was given to me by a boat repair guy with 40 years in the biz, (he used to work at Doc Freeman's replacing engines). Plus my friend just did this with his prompting on his 42ft GB, who wanted to replace the clouded-can't-see-through fuel sight tubes. I won't go into embarrassing details why I just did it on my 37' North Sea Trawler (CHB hull).
Tape off the vent hose so no air gets in. Determine the size of the drain plug you will take out (huh? YES!) and replace with a fitting, hose, valve, and more hose to drain into old plastic jugs or whatever.. Get your shop vac out, remove the fill deck plate, stick the right size hose in far enough to get a vacuum effect, and turn it on. The fuel level is far enough away so no fuel will go into the vacuum. (I could hear the tank "collapse".) Undo the drain plug, you can hear air being sucked in the drain hole while you change to your hose assembly.

Buy Isapropyl (92%) alcohol at the pharmacy, dump it in the tank. It is aka "gas dryer", and converts water to alcohol which can be burned. (google it).
Good insurance is to get your fuel polished, and keep extra racor filters on hand!
PS Who is good to polish fuel in Seattle?

 

[Steve DAntonio]

I've dealt with this scenario many times. I've replaced tanks that corroded from the inside.

Your tanks are aluminum, the last thing you want is water in them for any length of time.

Your fuel pick up will not remove all of the water from a tank, the pick up is usually at least 3/4 of an inch off the tank bottom, which can allow the entire bottom of the tank to be under a layer of water. The water will support biological growth, the byproducts of which are acidic, which will further hasten tank corrosion.

The right way to deal with this is to empty the tank, open it and remove the water.

If the tank fill was a straight vertical drop, you might be able to drop a plastic (not metal) pick up tube to suck water off the tank bottom, and you could possibly get most of the water that way, but again, the most effective means of doing this is accessing the tank through an inspection port.

More here https://stevedmarineconsulting.com/cleaning-diesel-tanks/

 

[Ron Stevenson]

You are using the vacuum cleaner to provide suction so you can open and drain from the BOTTOM of the tank, not from the top.

 

[Steve DAntonio]

Do this first! This tip was given to me by a boat repair guy with 40 years in the biz, (he used to work at Doc Freeman's replacing engines). Plus my friend just did this with his prompting on his 42ft GB, who wanted to replace the clouded-can't-see-through fuel sight tubes. I won't go into embarrassing details why I just did it on my 37' North Sea Trawler (CHB hull).
Tape off the vent hose so no air gets in. Determine the size of the drain plug you will take out (huh? YES!) and replace with a fitting, hose, valve, and more hose to drain into old plastic jugs or whatever.. Get your shop vac out, remove the fill deck plate, stick the right size hose in far enough to get a vacuum effect, and turn it on. The fuel level is far enough away so no fuel will go into the vacuum. (I could hear the tank "collapse".) Undo the drain plug, you can hear air being sucked in the drain hole while you change to your hose assembly.

Buy Isapropyl (92%) alcohol at the pharmacy, dump it in the tank. It is aka "gas dryer", and converts water to alcohol which can be burned. (google it).
Good insurance is to get your fuel polished, and keep extra racor filters on hand!
PS Who is good to polish fuel in Seattle?

Isopropyl alcohol does not convert water to alcohol, it allows water to mix with alcohol. Diesel engines do not tolerate alcohol well, nor do they tolerate large quantities of water mixed with alcohol. Most engine manufacturers prohibit the use of additives with alcohol. https://stevedmarineconsulting.com/diesel-fuel-additives-part-ii/

This fuel "trick" might work in an emergency but I would not recommend it otherwise.

Placing a vacuum on a fuel or other tank, carefully, you can collapse it, in order to work on plumbing is a handy trick that does work.

 

[PM]

It seems like the consensus is to get the water out as completely and as soon as you can. I certainly echo that sentiment but offer an additional reason.

the water will sit at the lowest point in the tank. Even if it just a bulge or weld or some other shape. A small amount, even less than a cup. Eventually it will cause rust and possibly a leak.

pete