Thread: How do you remove water from Diesel

Looking forward to your experiments, the problem with diesels is they are basicaly a positive dispacement pump due to their high compression ratios. Therefore if you put something in there that can't be burnt it tries to compress it, if it can't compress it the weakest part breaks or bends eg conrod breaks and is liberated through the block. Let me know if you come up with ideas it will stop me shi%&ng myself when I get water in my fuel.
Also a mate of mine got water in the fuel on his Jeep Cherokee diesel and it caused corrosion in the fuel p/p, he is also hands on has a milling machine, lathes etc and is no fool with engines. Answer spend $4000 or trade it in. Result new Nissan Patrol.
The Land Rover series1 300tdi has the sediment filter just after the tank and I have replaced the original filter with a Raycor filter with clear bowl at the bottom. I had a gut full of bad diesel and was ableto keep driving and dump the filters every 200k's untill the water was removed . It was still a pain in the **** but in the outback you don't have many options when buying fuel.

Interesting, I was under the impression the sedimenter will remove all the water and the backup is the sump on the fuel filter, ( similar to the jap ones that have the sedimenter under the fuel filter, my pajero even had a high water indicator light in the sedimenter)

I am not sure if there is any aftermarket stuff that will do it, let us know you go, it would be a handy one to know, if it is successful.



john

Originally Posted by rjhjstr

We're all probably aware of the old trick with petrol engines of adding metho to the tank when the petrol is contaminated with a little water. The water dissolves in the metho and is then carried through to the engine where combustion turns it to steam and out of the exhaust. Is there an equivalent trick for diesel that has a little water contamination? Obviously if there is heaps of water contamination you need to drop the sedimenter on the bottom of the fuel filter but if there is just a small amount of water contamination is there an easier option

Russell

Fit a Raycor separator. They work. My experience with them is on line haul prime movers and heavy plant. There is no better diesel fuel separator/filter.

Originally Posted by Brian Hjelm

Fit a Raycor separator. They work. My experience with them is on line haul prime movers and heavy plant. There is no better diesel fuel separator/filter.

I 100% agree with Brian, I have one on one of my machines and I have never had any problems with that machine with water in the system.

A sedimenter is just that, it catches heavy sediment before it goes into the filter and cant be relied upon to separate all the water from fuel but the Raycor separators do a damn good job and are easy to service as long as you put it in an accessable position.

Also a good quality fuel treatment e.g.Diesel power or Wurth have good surfactants which can clear small amounts of water in fuel but only small amounts but I would recoment separating it and still running a good treatment.

I don't think water would cause damage re compression such as bent valves or conrods, unless it came in through the air intake in a much larger quantity than the minute puff from an injector. If it was injected the mist would amount to the same amount as the diesel mist, which is just as "compressible" (no liquids can be compressed). In fact when the diesel starts to combust, the pressure would be higher than with water (unless like water injection on a petrol vehicle the water may aid combustion).
The damage will be done to the pump, as the water has no lubricating properties and of course will be corrosive. I've even read somewhere that low sulphur diesel has been causing the odd issue with injector pumps, as the sulphur content helped with lubrication (just because I read it doesn't make it true!).

Originally Posted by mcrover

A sedimenter is just that, it catches heavy sediment before it goes into the filter and cant be relied upon to separate all the water from fuel but the Raycor separators do a damn good job and are easy to service as long as you put it in an accessable position.

Sedimenters collect large particles AND water which is in droplets large enough to settle. Modern water separators hower use coarse filter media to coalesce water droplets so they will settle. This technology usually is the most effective.

There are a few companies who make very good fuel/water separators, and some of them are possibly better than the Raycor (Made by Parker Hannifin).

Originally Posted by isuzurover

Sedimenters collect large particles AND water which is in droplets large enough to settle. Modern water separators hower use coarse filter media to coalesce water droplets so they will settle. This technology usually is the most effective.

There are a few companies who make very good fuel/water separators, and some of them are possibly better than the Raycor (Made by Parker Hannifin).

Raycor separators have a centrifugal section like a Donaldson air filter which spins the heavy bits out and down into a clear bowl. They also have a filter element. Water is heavy and is spun out and down. Raycor also make a lot of tricky stuff like fleet storage maintenance installations that circulate and clean & warm bulk fuel, and installations that clean and meter waste oil into bulk fuel storage. Big fleets in the USA love these as they can burn their waste oil in their diesel engines. East Texas Motor Freight had over 6000 prime movers on the road and had Raycors on all trucks and in all depots with bulk fuel, as did Ryder, Winnet, Pacific Intermountain, Roadway, Georgia Mail, Chicago Limited and other small USA fleets.

"Therefore if you put something in there that can't be burnt it tries to compress it, if it can't compress it the weakest part breaks or bends eg conrod breaks and is liberated through the block. Let me know if you come up with ideas it will stop me shi%&ng myself when I get water in my fuel. "


If he had that much water in his diesel, I think his feet would be wet, and we would be discussing how to drain a fuel tank and a sump and a diff and a gearbox and a footwell.

I would suggest that you undo the plug in your fuel tank and drain out say 5-10 litres, then drain the the water trap and keep changing your filters and draining your water trap until there is no further water showing.