Diesel fuel going bad

RBnSC

Well-known Member
Spent yesterday working on two of our tractors. A 4230 that started losing power and was hard to start. We parked it and grabbed our early model 4020 and used it until We inadvertently ran it out of fuel and got fuel out of a plastic tote we stored some fuel we got from our BIL that works at a tank cleaning company. The 4020 will not run at all and the 4320 will run but will not rev up. Both tractors have new filters and have their fuel systems primed. The fuel in the tote is about a year old and was full when we got it and used as we needed it until it got low and the last of it has been sitting till we needed fuel in a pinch. BIL has had the same problem with the same batch of fuel in there yard truck. Gone bad or separated?
Ron
 
That's odd.

Have you tried new fuel in both tractors? Do both run well with new fuel?

I've not heard of diesel fuel "going bad" even if stored for years, but who knows what might happen now that the federales are mandating this, that, and everything.

Dean
 
"fuel looks clean and not much smell"

Do you know for a fact that it IS actually diesel fuel and not some other petroleum (or chemical) fluid?

Have it checked for cetane rating.
 
I would have guessed algae also. Is it a biodiesel? I've had some problems with it causing a tractor to lose power but it was always in cool weather.
 
or just use a clean piece of printer paper and put equal drops of new diesel and the stuff in the can, on each half of the sheet. If they look at all different, or spread differently, they are not the same. Purge the systems in the tractors manually and fully, to assure there is no more of the foreign stuff in the system. Some liquids can ruin the injecton pump and injectors in a few seconds. May best of luck follow you around. Jim
 
We have used fuel that was several years old with no problem as well but this new stuff I don't know. I also don't know how old it was when a we bought it.
 
This reminded me of when we switched to bio diesel that was soy bean based. Soy diesel we loved it and we were running it 99% all summer until fall and we went to 30% and NEVER HAD A PROBLEM . We got a load in one time that wouldn't burn for NOTHING. Come to find out the supplier had switched to a animal fat base and it was C@#P .
 

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