Do you fuel polish?

I talked to two long time GB owners recently who have never polished their fuel.

Do you?
If so, how and when?

No, but have a very good filter system and being selective as to where I buy fuel seems to do the trick. Also, in recognizing the potential for water problems Art D was very clever in his tank designs with sloping bottoms and little chance for standing water.

Did it once.

http://www.trawlerforum.com/forums/s6/fuel-contamination-racor-filter-help-11228.html

FlyWright said:

Did it once.

Click to expand...

And likely the best way IMHO.

I do, only because the fuel polishing system came with the boat.

Prior to refuelling, I transfer the fuel from the aft tanks to the forward tanks so the newest fuel ends up primarily in the aft tanks. Also, I move fuel around to trim the boat. Any movement of fuel from tank to tank goes through the fuel polishing system. I can also polish fuel from a tank and have it go back to that tank, but as you can gather it's not the most efficient way to polish fuel.

My fuel tanks are near new and I probably don't need to polish fuel, but because I can, I do.

Jim
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I have day tanks for each engine (385 litres each). These have no deck fills, and can only be filled via the fuel polisher. Although I can run from any tank, I always use the day tanks to ensure cleanest fuel possible is delivered to the engines. The polisher can move fuel from-to any tank, and also pressure-prime fuel lines/engine fuel filters if required.

Here's my fuel manifold...




Jim
Sent from my iPad using Trawler Forum

I have a polishing system but don't polish the fuel that often. About every 2 years I run the tanks down to about 300 lts per side and then polish the fuel from tank to tank.
During the process I empty one tank , open it up and clean out the sumps, I then do the same to the other tank, equalise the tanks and then refuel for the next trip.

Bay Pelican has a Gulf Coast Filter system using paper towels as the filter. I polish often and especially after moving the boat. When I remove the filter and when I drain the filter housing I can see what has been collected, especially the water.

My system was inexpensive, the filter housing, a Walbro pump, some hose and several ball values. It is not set up to run underway. It also serves as my transfer pump among the four diesel tanks.

The above are all on board systems - what about the remote sort where a guy wheels a trolley up the dock, extracts your fuel, gives it a polish then puts it back.

Do you fuel polish?

No we have a fuel tank , with sump, not just a box for fuel.

WE service the tank, then,

WE burn the fuel rather than run it 500 times thru a filter.

My boat has two tanks. It's now set up where the engine and generator both draw from the starboard tank. Fuel can be added to either tank, but in practice will only be added to the port tank. My fuel polisher will polish either tank or transfer fuel in either direction. So all fuel will be added to the port tank and polished going to the starboard tank. Fuel transfer will also be used to trim the boat. The tank drains (pump connection point) are located in the bottom forward corner (lowest point). Likely I will develop a routine for a brief polishing of the starboard tank to remove any accumulation in that lowest point.

Ted

Hawgwash said:

I talked to two long time GB owners recently who have never polished their fuel.

Do you?
If so, how and when?

Click to expand...

No. It's a waste of time and money in most cases.

Brisyboy said:

The above are all on board systems - what about the remote sort where a guy wheels a trolley up the dock, extracts your fuel, gives it a polish then puts it back.

Click to expand...

See post #3

No, I do run on low fuel level from time to time to circulate the fuel more frequently. Boats kept with full tanks and not used much have the most fuel issues IMO.

The Venture has a port tank for the port engine and a starboard tank for the starboard engine. Each engine fuel tank has an electric pump on a timer that can polish that tank. Each pump can also transfer fuel to the other tank. The pumps are also useful to prime the engines after a filter change.

There's a lot of very complicated systems around which in my opinion are a waste of money, or testimony to a good salesman.
Stainless steel tanks with a sloping bottom with a drain valve, drain a cup full of fuel to check for water, job done !

Greetings,
OK. Here's the question for those that DO have a system and use it to polish fuel. Is there any sign of contamination of the filters after a polish? How bad?

Very little sediment and water.
Sediment is mainly rust from inside the tanks(they are black steel) after 20 years they are in near perfect condition.YES I do have a sump on each tank, I built and tested the tanks myself whilst building the boat.
Most moisture is when I have carried less than 1/2 full tanks for a period of time in humid conditions.

Irish Rambler said:

There's a lot of very complicated systems around which in my opinion are a waste of money, or testimony to a good salesman.
Stainless steel tanks with a sloping bottom with a drain valve, drain a cup full of fuel to check for water, job done !

Click to expand...

That's just what I installed. My 30 year old stainless tanks rotted out from the bottom up, due to moisture accumulating underneath them.

I mounted the replacement tanks on wedge shaped supports to allow air circulation under the tanks, and give a slope down to a drain valve.

I also draw fuel off the bottom of the tank at another low point. I know some people don't like doing this due to the risk of a fuel line rupturing and draining the tank, but I prefer not to have any "dead" space in the tank which just accumulates gunk over time.
It all loosens up when the seas get rough, just when you least need the problems.

I do NOT polish. I installed a multi-stage filtration system and it seems to be working so far after 8 seasons.

My old boat had a fuel polisher but I seldom used it.

The new boat (to me) returns about 60 gals/hr to the tanks, already filtered.
I think it was Bill Parlitore (Passagemaker Magazine) that started that whole craze. I was one who fell for it.

RT Firefly said:

Greetings,
OK. Here's the question for those that DO have a system and use it to polish fuel. Is there any sign of contamination of the filters after a polish? How bad?

Click to expand...

Asphaltene precipitates out of diesel fuel and the introduction of ULSD has increased that issue. We polish fuel at 30 microns when it is transferred from tank to tank for trim, randomly when the thought occurs to me, or when filling the day tanks at 10 microns, as well as when the tanks are low and the fuel is sloshing around stirring up whatever is in the tank. The filters, after a year, show a fair amount of particulates that have been picked up, so get replaced annually. Our fuel comes direct from the refinery a couple of miles away, but refined fuel is only filtered to 30 microns so even when as fresh as it gets there is stuff than can be removed. Asphaltene starts forming within hours of refining, especially when heated up during recirculation.

We have sump drains, but I have never detected anything to drain because the tanks stay clean, nor have I ever seen a drop of moisture or crud in the sediment bowls. I finally replaced the Racor 500 2 micron filters on the main engine that have been there since 2012. They were black, but no back pressure yet.

Not sure I will ever understand the argument against cleaner rather than dirtier fuel.

Asphaltenes and Fuel Filter Plugging

Nope. Equipped with Detroit Diesel 2 cycle engines, the fuel is cycled in volume through the filter system. Try to buy fresh fuel from high turnover docks, and use the boat, that's my motto.

" Try to buy fresh fuel from high turnover docks, and use the boat, that's my motto." . Keep it simple.

John

RT Firefly said:

Greetings,
OK. Here's the question for those that DO have a system and use it to polish fuel. Is there any sign of contamination of the filters after a polish? How bad?

Click to expand...

Obviously after 25 posts with no "best invention ever" comments, that was going to be my next question.

These systems seem to be relative newborns. I wonder if they really do much and how work boats managed for a century without them.

Just changed out the 30u primary fuel filters after 18 months and about 1500 gallons each of net fuel burn. Filters were surprisingly clean with some sediment in the bowl.

Carl, I'm certainly in favor of clean fuel. Each vessel is different in design and capacity of tanks, age of same, yearly fuel burn and filter system. The OPs question was what do we have, so I duly reported.

BTW, I'd have guessed today's ULS fuels to have less asphaltenes than a few decades ago fuel's. My tanks never have seen high sulfur fuels, could this be a benefit?

I've recently been on some vessels with Alfalaval centrifuges. The gunk they pick up is astounding. But with old tanks and fuel burn measured in tens of thousands of gallons per year, ALs seem prudent

Have a way to keep water out of the tank, either by a proper sump or a pickup right at the bottom, and tanks will stay clean. My pickups are right at the bottom and when I look in the fill cap, the bottom of the tank is still shiny aluminum. No need to polish.

Don't keep the fuel long enough to polish. With a twelve month boatin' season the stuff gets used up before it can deteriorate. I do drain the Racors every couple of months.

Delfin said:

Asphaltene precipitates out of diesel fuel and the introduction of ULSD has increased that issue. We polish fuel at 30 microns when it is transferred from tank to tank for trim, randomly when the thought occurs to me,

Click to expand...

Here's a filter with 5 years and 300 hours on it. The boat still ran like a champ....Read up on Filtration and most will recommend a high capacity fleetguard (or equivalent) upstream. After discovering this on the (new to me at the time) boat, I plumbed in a Walbro and a 3 way so I could move fuel around and Clean/polish at the same time. I also treated for Asphaltines. I doubt this situation will be repeated, but I feel a lot better about my fuel system now. I have a 30 Micron Fleetguard, 10 Micron Racor, and 2 micron Volvo filter between my tanks and my engine. Unfiltered fuel problems are now far down on my list of worries...