Help Cleaning Diesel

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Old 02-20-2011, 02:47 PM
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Question Help Cleaning Diesel

This is a follow up to this thread (pics pg 3):

https://www.ford-trucks.com/forums/1...esel-tank.html

I was hoping some of you could help us out. Now that we have gotten the tractors repaired, we have ~200 gallons of dirty diesel. Is there any way we can clean it?

We still have the items used for making bio (methanol, lye, etc...). We were wondering if we could do something to get the sugar out since diesel prices are $$$$$.

TIA
 
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Old 02-20-2011, 05:49 PM
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Nervermind. I didn't read the entire post.
 

Last edited by binuya; 02-20-2011 at 05:51 PM. Reason: Didn't read full post
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Old 02-20-2011, 05:57 PM
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I wonder if one could do a water wash on diesel as you do biodiesel. The warm water would dissolve the sugar, and it would drop out of suspension. Then you would need to dry the diesel. Seems worth a shot to me being that you're sitting on over $500 worth of fuel.
 
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Old 02-20-2011, 06:10 PM
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we were wondering if we could process this dirty diesel and clean it with the methanol and lye. not sure.

we would not water wash our fuel. we would use magnesol.
 
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Old 02-20-2011, 07:30 PM
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Read your other thread. Do not! repete, DO NOT mix clorox and Lye together! The gas it produces WILL KILL YOU!!! Throw the diesel away, you can't clean it. A chemical reaction has taken place and you can't reverse it. Sorry..... Plastic or rubber lines will need to be changed. but a hot tank will clean out the mess from the tank and lines. My hot tank is 400 gallons water and 55 lbs of lye heated to 180 deg. Overnight in my hot tank followed by a cleaning with my steam cleaner will take out all the crud. Don't ask me how I know..........
Good luck and keep us informed.
 
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Old 02-20-2011, 09:29 PM
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i was hoping you would chime in on this. dang it, we were afraid of that.

we got everything on the equipment clean. it was very $$$$ as all the injection pumps has to be rebuilt.

we did not mix lye and clorox. ammonia either, lol. we don't like mustard gas.

oh well, we will toss it.
 
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Old 02-21-2011, 02:03 PM
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Ok, still confused. Sugar does not dissolve in diesel, but will in water. You can separate water from diesel. Am i over thinking this?
 
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Old 02-21-2011, 02:14 PM
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Originally Posted by empiretc
Ok, still confused. Sugar does not dissolve in diesel, but will in water. You can separate water from diesel. Am i over thinking this?
I, for one, would give it a shot. Water is easier to separate from pump diesel than biodiesel. But then again, I already have the equipment to water wash. Is it confirmed that it is sugar? If you would rather not mess with it, and it isn't worth the hassle, then dump it.
 
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Old 02-21-2011, 08:45 PM
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it is mixed in the farm diesel. we are almost certain it is sugar, but we didn't have it tested.


take a look at the pics and let me know what you think it could be. one person said it may be liquid plastic...
 
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