What do you think this is

jon f mn · May 13, 2018

The fuel filters got plugged on my 1030, they had water in them and this pink stuff. Never seen anything like it before. Could it just be water? There was water in the first filter and a little water and this goo in the second. I drained the tank last year and found nothing, but it got this in it this year.

heavyhaulertoo · May 13, 2018

Looks like old biofuel I don?t want to say bean oil it?s only have of the mix. I use it but I burn it up every day.

Russ from MN · May 13, 2018

Algae? Are you using any biocide?

john in la · May 13, 2018

Water; Slime; and Diesel fuel especially new biodiesel mix.
Yep you got the bug that most wrongly call algae.
Time for a biocide.

Four forms of diesel bugs.

Bacteria: single cell organisms, typically 0.3 to 60?m in size. A colony can double in size in 20-30 minutes. One cell can multiply into 2 million in 7 hours. Bacteria will degrade quality fuel over time.

Mould: a type of fungi with long multi-cellular filaments. There is little indication that mould degrades fuel but, due to the long strands, it does block filters.

Yeast: another type of relatively slow-growing fungi. It is typically 3-4?m in size.

Biofilm: a complex structure of microbes which adhere to the walls of the fuel tank and to each other. It begins to form when free floating microbes land on a surface and attach themselves to it. Given time, biofilms can grow many millimeters thick and produce a protective slime. Biofilms can excrete acid which can erode a metal fuel tank. Chunks of biofilm can slough off periodically, giving microbes the opportunity to infect other areas of the fuel system and block filters.

JimS · May 13, 2018

Not directly related, but our local diesel shop related a story to me. They told me of a vehicle that was running bio-diesel that had failed. It just stopped. When they tore the engine down, they found the black filled with what looked like caulk but more plastic like. Seems the fuel pump was leaking into the crankcase. The presence of the nitrogen in the bio-diesel, the oil in the case, and the heat of the engine had plasticised the mix. To have made plastic, they would have needed chlorine and hydrogen. I thought it was kind of Mr. Wizard cool where someone had inadvertently made a plastic machine.

Crazy Horse · May 13, 2018

"Bacteria: single cell organisms, typically 0.3 to 60?m in size".

Hi John, unless your phone or computer is kicking out some strange symbol, does ?m equate to microns?

john in la · May 13, 2018

Yes ? is micro
1/1,000,000

nano

= X 1/1,000,000,000
micro (?) = X 1/1,000,000
milli (m) = X 1/1,000
centi (c) = X 1/100
deci (d) = X 1/10

Crazy Horse · May 13, 2018

Here it reads good now but originally on my laptop, the symbol looked like some kind of complex Chinese symbol. Some other strange symbols show up now and then, there has been some discussion on that for some punctuation marks send by certain phones, etc.

Frank 41 · May 13, 2018

Bio will turn brown and look like putty. Dump some E85 in it to clean it out.

What do you think this is

jon f mn

Well-known Member

heavyhaulertoo

Member

Russ from MN

Well-known Member

john in la

Well-known Member

JimS

Member

Crazy Horse

Well-known Member

john in la

Well-known Member

Crazy Horse

Well-known Member

Frank 41

Member

Similar threads