Mould/Fungus in Fuel Filter

Get a bottle of diesel treatment from Mobil, Shell, BP etc; to get rid of any more bactaria (not fungus). The warning light would have come on if the water in the filter had got too high.

If the fuel filter was starting to get clogged up from the bactaria, then it could attribute to a bit of fuel starvation after standing for a longer period of time.

Rough guess yes it could be why you had problems starting in the morning...

Hello ,We have a 2001 3lt torbo Patrol and Had similar problem in trip to Tasmania , Nissan service in Hobart started off by saying it was water in fuel but had a sight glass fuel filter so knew it was not water , after telling me injector pump would need to be sent to mainland they ended up after my pointing out the sightglass putting two bottles of diesel treatment in the tanks and patting me on the head and sending us on our way......guess what.....not a problem since and we use diesel treatment regularly.

The growth in the fuel is a normal thing but can cause problems, a fuel treatment helps to solve the problem. Even the tankers that deliver the fuel have it growing inside. Some big refineries put additives in the fuelto solve this problem. Your best bet is to replace your fuel filter at every service, a filter or your pump your choice. Col

Paul and others my be interested in this.

There was an article on page 94 of the December Australian 4x4 mag regarding a fuel debugging unit. Looks like a small water trap unit but with a metal bowl. Apparently the fuel is run past magnets and this allegedly kills any bacteria and fungus.
Agents are a Morison & Morison Pty.Ltd on (03) 9533 5446.

The magazine is going to a full report on this unit in a future issue. hope it's not a Peter Brock special.

Fungus etc will effect performance and can apparently get into the fuel lines and filter blocking them. Once its in its hard to get rid of. It a good idea to run fuel through your auxilary tank regularly. Dont leave it empty and don't let fuel sit in it for any length of time. I fill mine and transfer fuel out of it completely every week or two. When its ben transferred and then go and fill up.

Some of us use fuel additives and some question their value. Personally I use Chemtech "Diesel Power". A litre of this will treat 4000ltr of fuel and is meant to deal with the nasties as well as cleaning deposites on the injectors etc. Every second or third time I fill up I put about 26mls into the main tank of my Patrol and about 5mils in the reserve. Reading your replies to your posting it appears that others have found that some of these additives work succesfully.

Happy Patroling

Paul

You didn't say what motor you had but I'm presuming its the 3.0 ltr.
I'm no expert on the mechanical side and couldn't suggest what the starting problem would be other than what you have suggested. I was having problems in normal running (3.0ltr Auto Patrol) at about 35000km and changed the filter. It made a lot of diference but still don't know what was in there unless it was some water from a problem I had with bad fuel at about 15000km. I had drained it at that time and the warning light come on again.

Since that problem I have fitted a water trap so hopefully no more problems in that area. Any small amount of water in the filter would have been sitting in there from the original problem, perhaps not enough to set of the warning light.

The only other problem I'm aware of with this motor is the CPU or EMS which can malfunction in extremely hot conditions when the engine is under load. The motor looses power or will not increase power because the CPU apparently apparently doesn't manage the turbo properly. I believe this only relates to the earlier GUII's of which mine is one. This wouldn't be your problem though and certainly not if you have the 4.2.