Tank treatment

We are lucky to be in Banbury where Tooly’s Boat Yard offers a tank cleaning service. The kit has two large filters with water traps and a pre filter which catches the large bits that come out of the tank. The first thing done was to stir up the diesel in the tank using a copper pipe blowing air into the diesel while moving the pipe all over the bottom of the tank for about 5 minutes.

Then two pipes, one metal that picks up from the bottom, the other plastic that returns the cleaned fuel.

This picture shows the water bubbles in the diesel.  Taken by Matt Armitage of Tooly's.

The metal pipe had a site glass so you can see what is coming out. During the first 5 to 10 minutes a lot of black flaky stuff came out together with the diesel and water.

The pumping was stopped and the dirty diesel drained out of the water traps. The process continued for an hour and water was drained off several times.

The diesel with water in it is a murky brown colour.

Unfortunately the engine was still unhappy by running lumpy and smoking, even with the cleaned fuel. The injectors have now been removed to be cleaned.