Hard lessons learned from dirty diesel fuel

I am maintenance chief for a large fleet. The trucks were being fueled from our tanks mostly. The problem of clogged fuel filters in both the in-ground system and the trucks was becoming quite serious. Finally we had the inground tanks checked by a company called Perfect Fuel Preservation. These guys were great. They got a web site. They took some samples and explained what was happening. We had sludge and some moisture in the bottom of our storage tank and we get fresh fuel delivered weekly. That fresh fuel stirs up the crud in the tank and it makes it's way to the tank filters which were so clogged that they had ruptured and allowed the contaminated fuel into the truck tanks.
Perfect Fuel cleaned out our inground tanks and then cleaned out the tanks on the entire fleet. The fuel problems have completely disappeared and the truck performance has improved. The trucks no longer smoke at start-up and run much cleaner. We keep very careful records of fuel consumption and have seen a 4.1% improvement since getting the tanks cleaned and treated. Perfect Fuel Preservation now comes monthly to check the tanks, but so far everything is fine. Hope this might help anybody with some fuel issues.

 

The moisture was getting into the tanks via some leaky valves on the tank lid. I had them fixed but underground tanks are bad for condensation as the bottom of the tank always stays a consistant temp. but the top of the tank changes with the weather. Moisture is always happening, plus the tank is vented to the air so as the fuel goes up and down in the tank, moist air is drawn in. This moisture thing is a constant struggle, so I just got a company that specializes in keeping tanks clean to test every 6 months, and clean yearly. It can be a bit pricey but nothing compared to have the trucks stop in some remote place and wait all day for a tow. The tank cleaning guys sell me these things called Water Eliminators that I put in all the truck tanks. They absorb any water in the tank and are then removed and discarded. They work well. We tried Bio-Diesel (B-10) but it geled in Northern Ontario so we stopped. Plus it was to expensive.