Has anybody experienced sugar in gas tank?

My daughters ex-boyfriend (or friend of his) sugared her/my cars gas tank.
Yes this is a permanent status for him. (if it was only that easy)

This has been a pain in the a$$. I've flushed the system,changed filters twice and still have issues. Tomorrow i'm dropping tank and changing fuel pump.

I'm wondering if any additive will liquify the remaining granuals so they will pass thru the injection system or clean any granuals that made it thru the fuel filter and in to the fuel rail etc.

This is the issue: I WANT MY EXCURSION BACK. my 17yr. old daughter loves to drive it and as "DADDYS little girl", She needs to be mobile. I can't drive her everywhere and she refuses to drive it because it stalled on expressway during rush hour traffic. (from her job) I'm open to suggestions.

Thanks for looking, Rich.

 

i dont right of hand know anny thing but i cant belive you daughter boyfriend did that. what an ..s,
Nick

 

Unfortunatly nothing I've ever heard of to clean it up. I was once involved in the same situtation, the only thing to do is [as you have stated] drop the tank pull the sending unit and flush for a while, You're probably going to replace fuel pump also, while the tank is off if that's where it's at, or where ever [sugar is heavy and will settle] the thing I did was take the fuel lines loose then use a small compressor and blow all the lines clear. [You didn't say what kinda car it is.] After cleaning tank, blowing lines replace any and all filters. Hope there's not to much made it to the injectors [or carb. if one is present.] Once everything is clean and new run some good quality injector or carb cleaner thru it. It'a a very time consuming repair and will cost but if you don't clean from front to back you'll continue to have problems. I do feel for ya

 

Yes it has been a time consuming "project". I've been working on it since July 12. I pulled about 4 cups out of filler neck that night before leaving to Iola old car show near Green Bay Wi. Where I picked up some body detailing clay and tried to research the origins of the "yellow well" of B.E.E.R. never to find out if the bottom of it runs clear or not. -off topic for the moment- anyways,she drives a 93 Buick Lesabre 3.8 MFI . I've thought that i had the problem fixed a few times then BANG!!! its possesed again. So i'll continue to flush & repair as needed till I win or give up and find another large car for her. Thanks, Rich.

 

Sorry to hear about your sugar problem. The only way to git rid of granular sugar from a system is to dissolve it with warm water. Then you have a problem of getting all the water out of system which there are additives for. New filters again. If you are to the point where single cylinders are starting to skip and you have full system pressure at the fuel rail, it's injector time.
My advice is to flush tank with warm water, replace pump, flush fuel line to inlet side of filter with hot water and replace filter. That should cure your sugar problem. Andy

PS Keep pumping injector cleaner to it for the next 5 tankfuls of gas at least.

 

Consider reporting to police and having insurance cover under comprensive.

I would expect the filter to stop the granuals before reaching the injectors. However anything that dissolved will have passed through. Lets make some assumptions here.

1) The sugar that did not dissolve did not pass through the filter.

2) Sugar is in the lines from the filter back and into the tank.

You will have to pull and if possible have the tank steam cleaned then dry.
Warning the inside will rust quickly after the moisture flashes off.

I would replace all pumps prior to the filter due to the gritty particals passing through the pump. This would be a precaution.

Flush or replace, the fuel lines from the filter back to the tank (with the tank out for steam cleaning)

You could water flush but then you would have to run solvent through to remove the water.

Any sugar that made it through to the combustion chamber would form carbon. If the engine does run I would add a carbon remover additive and drive highway speeds for a while to burn clean.


Best of luck to ya.

 

http://www.snopes.com/autos/grace/sugar.asp

 

Hell, it mite be cheaper/eaiser to just buy another fuel tank (from a junk yard) and new fuel lines. Then just replace everything from the filter back.

Sorry to hear about all of this... I have 2 daughters (7y/o & 18 mos), I sure hope this is not in my future. May want to invest in locking gas caps.

 

Ok,, off topic a bit, but.........

My daughters are 26 and 35. Whew! I see what ya got comming.

 

Yes - I'm VERY AFRAID!!!!!

 

I don't mean to remove all hope - but here is my experience.

I once did this to a guy who assulted my wife. I know - good reason, bad response. Any way, I put 5 pounds (that's right 5 pounds) into his 1985 Chev. Sunbird tank - liqified in a gallon water jug.

It totaled the car! They could never get it to run right again! I learned this through a third party who knew both of us (and supported my retaliation) as well as through the fact that the car soon disappeared for good.

I'm sorry to give such poor hope, but that is my experience.

BTW, I'm NOT recommending doing this to anyone. I'm not proud of what I did. I should have let God and the law take vengence.

 

That may be what they think, but I know from personal experience that it is true. As I posted above, it totaled the car.

 

After reading their description a few thoughts come to mind.

It may be that because I first liquified the sugar in water that it did the damage it did.

Their own account is self contradictory. They state that:

...a "sock" that blocks solid materials, so the fuel gets through, but precious little that's not liquid does. Further up the line is the fuel filter, and what may have got through the "sock" does not get past it.

Later, they state that a possible effect is:
...it can clog the fuel filter or the fuel injectors...

If it can't possibly make it past the filtration, how can it clog the injectors?

This is one of the reasons I love Mythbusters. They don't just sit around and theorize about the myths, they test them. Although they don't always get it right, at least they do more than "think" their wat to a conclusion about something.

As a side note, I think that Mythbusters did test this one and also said "no effect". I believe they got it wrong, but as I stated before, the fact that I liquified the sugar in water may have change the process.

 

Sugar does not dissolve in gas. Therefore the filters just have to catch the granules which they do.

In emptyd's case, the water definitely made the difference. The sugar was already dissolved and therefore may have been able to get past the filters. The simple fact is though, adding a gallon of water to someones gas tank is going to cause just about as much damage.

I always buy locking gas caps for my vehicles. You just can't trust people that much these days. It is good cheap protection against vandalism and gas theft (which has been much more common the last year or so). If I'm going on a long highway trip where I know I'm going to need to fuel up a couple times I just leave the cap unlocked.

 

True, the water would be on the bottom of the tank and the fuel pick up would get the water. When the water hit the engine it would stall or run really rough. (Miss katrina graciously put water in my pickup at no charge so I found out first hand)

I don't know how much water was in my truck but after I freed up the engine it would miss and ran poorly until the tank had been cleaned.


I would expect some sugar in water to make it through but I would expect it to be still salvagable.