How best to clean your diesel fuel system?

Cheers Truckster!
What treatment would you recommend for the fuel pump?
How would i go about it?
Also, I'll check out Hi Flo.
Regards
Quartzy

getting it re-conditioned, or serviced... it isnt cheap, but it will give you the most out of your donk

Algie will grow in tanks where water is present. All tanks collect some condensation. Some fuels can be highly contaminated. Maybe "FuelDoctor" shock treatment would be advisable...maybe several doses..

G'day
I study microbiology at uni, and i have no doubt all sorts of funky bacteria (maybe a few types of algae not my area of interest to comment havn't found any journal articles on algae and diesel) reside in the fuel tanks of not only Diesel 4x4's but also in petrol ones.
Going out on a limb fuel filters would probably not filter them out (unless you havn't changed them for a long time) as we are talking some seriously small organsisms maybe 20 micrometers (1000th of a mm). Therefore these would end up being fried in the cyllinders and ending up as carbon deposits in the engine.

Therefore in my opinion forking out for any of those biocides is pretty much a waste of time especially since we are talking some of the most adaptive bacteria which would probably end up using the "biocide" as a food source anyway after a while. (happened with some petrochemical based disinfectants in hospitals).

Hi Jonoc,
Just going by what I read in an article in the 4x4 Aust magazine in Dec02 and the follow up in April03. both of these are available on the De-Bug website. The concern with these types of algae is that they multiply quickly in the right conditions(doubling in number every 20 min according to the april03 article) and form long strings of slime causing problems such as restricted fuel flow and blocked filters. These micro-organisms are refferred to as Hydrocarbon Utilising Micro-Organisms which are more than 250 in number.
This the link
http://www.morison.com.au/clippings.htm

Having said all that I spoke to Ron Moon personally about the articles and he only decided to them after he had tested the unit on his own vehicle.

Peter

Ok , the word from the environmental microbiologist is.

Most fuel contamination problems are caused by Cladosporium resinae a type of fungi (like beer makers yeast or common bread yeast). Most (almost all) diesel is contaminated with microbes , but they pose almost no problem unless fuel is saturated with water and nutrience(causes its own problems).

Algae is not a problem unless your in the habit of exposing your fuel tank to sunlight for extended periods of time.

Microbial contamination of fuel tanks is only a problem in fuel that has a very high water content. If the water content is high enough doubling time can be around 20mins for some bacteria depending on many factors

From what i understand the problem is most often associated with crappy watery fuel which may cause more problems in itself.

Microbial contamination can be limited by using good fuel.

Interesting note is that most of the engine problems associated with microbes in the fuel are their bye products cause increased corrosion and blistering of some of the fittings in the fuel system. Secondary problems are with blockages.

more information
http://members.shaw.ca/diesel-duck/library/tech_notes/microbial_contamination.htm

http://www.fueldoctors.com.au/fuel.htm

If you have anymore information please send it to me as this area fascinates me.

cheers Jono C

Hi Jonoc,
I agree with your views regarding water in diesel, that is what the article mentioned. It also states that the only place that the algae grows is in the fuel water interface which according to the microbiologist you spoke to is spot on.

My point regarding the De-Bug unit is that it costs around $400 to fit depending on the size of the unit recommended for the vehicle. considering the amount of money we spend setting up our rigs it is cheap insurance for us because we never know what type of diesel we are buying at any service station around the country.

cheers Peter