Fuel polishing? (split from Re: Officially part of the Foretravel Family!)

Topic: Fuel polishing? (split from Re: Officially part of the Foretravel Family!) (Read 1657 times) previous topic - next topic - Topic derived from Officially part of th...

Re: Fuel polishing? (split from Re: Officially part of the Foretravel Family!)

Reply #25 – January 28, 2021, 12:06:57 am

My Hatteras is 50 years old. Never polished the fuel. Burn several 750 gal tankfuls a season and filters never clog. My rv is 26 years old. Same story. No clogged filters and several tankfuls a year burnt. If there is a bunch of garbage at the bottom of the tank, it hasn't caused any issues yet so I don't consider fuel polishing anything I would ever need to do.

Re: Fuel polishing? (split from Re: Officially part of the Foretravel Family!)

Reply #26 – January 28, 2021, 12:36:29 am

A bit of snake oil! Never "polished " fuel in over 40 years of dealing with diesel equipment, some of it sitting mos at a time in Fla. Your diesel circulates way more fuel through the filters than it uses. Hence filtered many times.

Re: Fuel polishing? (split from Re: Officially part of the Foretravel Family!)

Reply #27 – January 28, 2021, 09:48:09 am

Our previous coach had a fuel leak, so I had to pull the tank for repair. 1998 Monaco, over 100,000 miles, no evidence that the tank had ever been out. I expected to see a lot of junk in the bottom. There was one chunk of goo about 1/4 inch across, and nothing else! I was surprised how clean the inside of the tank was. I had planned to filter the fuel when it went back in, and to discard several gallons from the bottom of the tank - neither was necessary.

I would think that small solids would be picked up and pumped through the filters while the engine, generator and Aqua Hot are operating - they all have return lines. So the usual bits of debris from fill-ups and etc. is filtered out. The issue would be if there is so much debris in the tank that it repeatedly overcomes the filters, at least that is what I think..

Years ago, we were in Washington and running out of fuel. We repeatedly found stations closed for good, closed on Sunday, no diesel. We had one more shot before I parked the coach and went looking for fuel in the towd.

We got fuel, from an ancient Mobil pump, that sounded like it would come apart, the gears trying to keep up with a modern price. The station's diesel tank was sitting on wood pallets. Less than 100 miles, we were at the side of the road changing fuel filters. A second filter change, and we were good again.

Re: Fuel polishing? (split from Re: Officially part of the Foretravel Family!)

Reply #28 – January 28, 2021, 11:08:09 am

Do what makes you feel good. I change the fuel filters yearly, carry spares, and do my best to always fill up as close to my parking spot if I think I might park for a while. After always doing those things, I had my fuel polished in NAC, and I was amazed by the junk stirred up, and caught in the process. The first and second filters were full of I guess bottom sediment.
Way back when in the sailboat business, we had clients that fueled once or twice a year, and fuel polishing often corrected their clogged filter issues. Delivering a 73' ketch in the Bahamas, we stirred up the tanks and had to swap back and forth from A to B, as the filters blinded over with algae. Different problems, different boats, different times.

Re: Fuel polishing? (split from Re: Officially part of the Foretravel Family!)

Reply #29 – January 28, 2021, 11:40:50 am

I had to take out my tank after an algae bloom in WA. Engine ran fine, Aqua hot kept clogging filters and nozzles) Local fuel polisher came out to polish, and his process could help but best to tank out tank.
We did so in RV park with their permission, he cut two 6" access holes in top of tank. Oh my the crap on the bottom was amazing! Lots of green/black dead algae for the most part. He cleaned and pressure washed the tank, and closed the access holes with purpose built, removable aluminum plugs. we put the tank back in, he polished my fuel he had pumped into his drum and it went back in my tank.
Ran perfect ever sense.

Companies with large data centers have thousands of gallons of diesel on hand to run generators during power outages. Most of them use either polishing systems built into the fuel farm or have a polishing service visit 2 X a year.
As the saying goes, " it's not a problem till it's a problem, and then it's a problem"

Re: Fuel polishing? (split from Re: Officially part of the Foretravel Family!)

Reply #30 – January 28, 2021, 12:48:28 pm

As the fuel tanks in our FTs have at least 2 baffles in them with small openings at the bottom to allow fuel to move. How do they get to the center section of the tank to clean it? Had my tank out a few mo ago, no problems. Don't think I'll be cutting holes in my tank. As always DWMYFG.

Re: Fuel polishing? (split from Re: Officially part of the Foretravel Family!)

Reply #31 – January 28, 2021, 01:17:27 pm

Think we are almost talking about 2 seperate things,agree that polishing the fuel is what the filters do,if the guy polishing the fuel
can clean the inside of the tank then that may be worth it if you have a problem.

Re: Fuel polishing? (split from Re: Officially part of the Foretravel Family!)

Reply #32 – January 28, 2021, 01:22:16 pm

While I suspect polishing will not get absolutely everything out of every nook and cranny because of the baffles the very high volume removed and pumped back in will likely stir up most of the gunk.

Think of the difference between turning on the garden hose so it just flows to turning it on wide open. The latter will certainly stir up more stuff.

Re: Fuel polishing? (split from Re: Officially part of the Foretravel Family!)

Reply #33 – January 28, 2021, 02:11:04 pm

Baffles did not go all the way to the top as I remember.

Re: Fuel polishing? (split from Re: Officially part of the Foretravel Family!)

Reply #34 – January 28, 2021, 02:35:39 pm

Mine did

Re: Fuel polishing? (split from Re: Officially part of the Foretravel Family!)

Reply #35 – January 28, 2021, 06:18:29 pm

I just had my fuel polished 2 weeks ago. He sucked out the fuel out from passenger side filler neck and the return line went into the opposite filler neck on driver side. The filter system pumped the fuel thru the filter system at 20 gallons a minute. Let it continuously run for about a hour circulating. Then pumped all the fuel into a outside portable tank. Then pumped fuel back into one side of the the tank and sucked it off the bottom on the other side ( washing everything to one side). Not sure of the force but the pump was putting out 20 gallons a minute so what ever was on the bottom was getting washed to the far size. All the while the coach was tilted to one side by means of deflating the airbags. Cost me 200 dollars, got some debris out and algae. The amount of pressure/vacuum the pump pulls gives and indication of how dirty things are as you can't see all the trash in the disposable filter with your eyes. A great peace of mind plus I have no doubt I will save money on future filter purchases .

Re: Fuel polishing? (split from Re: Officially part of the Foretravel Family!)

Reply #36 – January 28, 2021, 07:48:33 pm

This is a timely topic. Just spent $4400 on new tires today and the coach died as I rolled into the driveway (hooray!). I noticed it stumbling a little bit on the way home and I originally thought it was a transmission issue. Specifically from a second to first gear down shift there was a shudder. It got worse though as I got near home and I eventually started to be down on power. I notice the plastic sight glass on the racor is a bit darker than I remember. I'm going to get some water finding paste and dip the tank to see how much water is in there if any. How many filters do you guys go through before you decide to polish the fuel? I recently replaced my secondary filter but my primary (the one that has the purge system, etc) has been on there for a while. I definitely believe it's a fuel problem as the fuel isn't flowing into that sight glass with the same "gusto" that it was. Can anyone recommend a fuel polisher in the Bradenton (tampa) fl area?

Sadly thanks to covid this fuel has been in the tank for almost a year which I am now reading is a big no no.

Re: Fuel polishing? (split from Re: Officially part of the Foretravel Family!)

Reply #37 – January 28, 2021, 07:48:41 pm

Well described, LakeLife. That is just how mine was done. I think most of what was in my tank came from before we owned the coach. We have been careful to fill the tank when it sits for a while and add biocide with every fill. Maybe some have been very lucky and after more than 20 years have spotless tanks. I think the real world is different. We cleaned our tank after a forced roadside change of clogged filters, not much fun. I carry two complete sets of filters, I know how to change them.

This is one of those things you can choose to do or choose not to do. Your choice. But someone passing a negative judgement on anyone who chooses something other than their choice is unacceptable.

Re: Fuel polishing? (split from Re: Officially part of the Foretravel Family!)

Reply #38 – January 28, 2021, 08:07:54 pm

Link to our experience, includes a couple of pics: Now This is Algae!

Re: Fuel polishing? (split from Re: Officially part of the Foretravel Family!)

Reply #39 – January 28, 2021, 08:42:58 pm

Wow I don't have any chunks in there that look like that.

Re: Fuel polishing? (split from Re: Officially part of the Foretravel Family!)

Reply #40 – February 07, 2021, 04:34:11 am

Look at the first part of this! It can be smart to cut open filters

https://youtu.be/PVjleTPfNSg

Clogged fuel filter
Mark

Re: Fuel polishing? (split from Re: Officially part of the Foretravel Family!)

Reply #41 – February 08, 2021, 08:02:41 pm

Fuel polishing is not new and it's not a gimmick. Anybody would have sailboat knows what fuel polishing is or if you don't have first-hand experience you soon will. And a fuel tank in a sailboat it doesn't get used very often and the boat's sitting in water with humidity constantly around it. We were on a teyana 37 out of clear lake near Houston just got out of the slip and was heading into the bay for a pre purchase Cruise when the engine died. we quickly changed the racor 500 filters Garner started again when it died again. At that point we changed filters again turn the boat around and headed back to the slip and it died right as we were getting into the slip. The owner had someone come in and filter both fuel tanks which were under the Port and starboard settees. They got quite a bit of junk out. We decided to walk away from the boat for other reasons. Now on the coaches if you drive your coach a reasonable amount of every year my guess is that you won't have any problems with alge unless you pick some up from a fueling station. Which is why I always go to big truck stops like loves where they have a constant turnover for their tanks. smaller places maybe not so much and you're more likely to get bad fuel. It's not worth it putting in a system to polish the fuel in our coach in my opinion. But it is worth it to have extra fuel filters on hand just in case and if you did develop an algae problem it shouldn't be that hard anywhere near Marina's to find somebody to polish your fuel for you for a couple hundred dollars.

Re: Fuel polishing? (split from Re: Officially part of the Foretravel Family!)

Reply #42 – February 09, 2021, 09:10:46 am

Maybe in thread already, apologize for repeat if so. Keith Risch on Nacogdoches has been doing this polishing with a good system, worth it to me

Re: Fuel polishing? (split from Re: Officially part of the Foretravel Family!)

Reply #43 – February 09, 2021, 06:44:52 pm

Keith Risch in MOT does fuel polishing on the side. I was amazed at the " stuff" he got out of my tanks. If you have ever had issues with clogged filters it is worth doing, at your convenience. Much better than being on the side of the road changing filters.

It has been already said but after 12 years full timing I can tell you from experience you need to carry at least 2 sets of fuel filters, generator too, tools and know how to change them. Imagine getting stuck in the middle of no where and the road service guy does not have the right filters for your coach. Have the correct filters , then you can pay to have someone put them on if you are not able to do it yourself.

Enjoy the journey.............................

Re: Fuel polishing? (split from Re: Officially part of the Foretravel Family!)

Reply #44 – February 10, 2021, 10:46:43 pm

Keith cleaned our tanks two years ago, they were not bad but still had gunk in them. Try to keep your fuel tanks topped up and full at night in the cooler months to prevent water condensing in the tanks, get fuel from a high volume truck stop (using your discount fuel card) so the fuel will be clean
Use an additive to prevent algae and disburse water

Re: Fuel polishing? (split from Re: Officially part of the Foretravel Family!)

Reply #45 – February 19, 2021, 10:55:44 pm

Well the one local guy wanted $400 and the other wanted $600 so I am DIYing fuel polishing.

The thing is I tipped the coach, let it rest for a few days and pumped out the bottom corner of the low side of the tank. I didn't get ANY water out of it. I also checked it out with a camera and a mirror and I don't see any gunk. I almost think I already got it all out.

Drove around for about 10 miles and cleaned the prefilter. Drove around and cleaned it again. So far the primary filter hasn't clogged. It seems the gunk isn't very large. I put in a biocide and a chemical to break up the biomass too.

We'll see how this goes when I really need the coach though. I have to keep doing test drives to try to eat up this fuel (and remaining biomass) and then get the tank full of fresh fuel and biocide.

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