During the summer months, I usually burn a gallon of WVO per tank of diesel. Yesterday I poured the gallon of oil into my almost empty front tank and left the funnel in the filler neck to drip dry. And then I forgot about it. And then it rained...hard. I have no idea how much water got in there but I know that some must have. What do I do now? Do I have to remove the tank and drain it? Is there something I can pour in there that will help? Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

 

I would drain it. Not worth trashing your pump and injectors.

 

You could probably run it for a bit(maby a minute?), then drain the water separator a few times.

Alternately, and this might be the best option - just grab a bucket and pull the hose off of the lift pump on the side of the block. If the truck has been run recently and the line is full of fuel, it will slowly siphon fuel from the tank and into your bucket.

Obviously, the pickup will be sucking from the bottom of the tank, so you'll get the water coming out first. You can then drain, say, 5 gallons, let it settle and drain off any water, same as you'd do for WVO.

 

The pickup wont get all of the water out tho, enough for the seperator to get maybe, but in this case i would definately drop the tank. You say its mostly empty besides the gallon of WVO, so not much loss, and the tank is light.

 

Not if it full of water. Plus I think there is about 3 gallons thst stays in the tank as unusable

 

It's extremely unlikely it's "full" of water. It might have picked up a gallon or so of water. And the pickup doesn't leave anywhere near 3 gallons, unless it's broken off or damaged. I've dropped three of these tanks after intentionally running them empty, and there's maybe a cup or two of fuel left.

The front skid plate is heavier than the empty tank. If the OP can drop the skid plate, a tank with even a few gallons of water/fuel should not be a problem, esp. if he uses ratchet straps to lower it gradually.

 

I thought it was more but then when I had to drop mine I did not run them dry. If it 2wd there is no skidplate

 

Thanks everybody for the replies. I might try taking the hose off the lift pump and seeing what comes out of that tank. Ultimately, I think I'll end up dropping the tank though; the fuel gauge on that tank has been acting funny and it'll give me a chance to play around with it.
I'm pretty glad these ol' trucks have two fuel tanks...

 

Drop the tank. It's easy and better than ruining your system. Also, why are you running WVO in your stock fuel tank....running blends are just asking for trouble.

 

Hey Genscripter, I'm using WVO just to save a few bucks. I filter it, put it into an empty tank which I then fill with diesel, and only use it in the summer. I'm not really saving much money on diesel so its not gonna hurt my feelings to stop burning it but I'm curious to know why you say not to use blends?

 

blended with diesel, because it seperates. The stuff is crazy corrosive and absorbs water. I looked into it, and decided its not worth the investment to do properly. To do improperly its only a matter of time until it bites you.

 

I've burned WVO for 14 years. Invested in $100 worth of filtering.
Worked out great for me, easily saved the $10K with my TDI versus commercial biodiesel. I still blend it in the F-250, 50/50 in summer. Only problem so far is that it gummed up the fuel gauges so they don't read out anymore.

But I spent 100's of hours learning about it, so that definitely helped.

 

Josh, what did you do? There's nothing I think that scares me more about my vehicle than getting that dreaded Water in Fuel warning. Estimates are that you're looking at $20,000.00 to replace the entire fuel system. I would have never given this a second thought - the fuel tank would be out, the diesel in 5 gallon jugs and I would be searching the internet to figure out how to dispose of contaminated fuel.

 

[QUOTE=Chuck-B;17354375]Josh, what did you do? There's nothing I think that scares me more about my vehicle than getting that dreaded Water in Fuel warning. Estimates are that you're looking at $20,000.00
replace the entire fuel system.QUOTE

I dont see where you get 20 k for a complete fuel system maybe 2k for a new pump and injectors fr9m Justin, lift pump under 50.00 ,tanks unless they had holes clean .
You have to have a lot of water to contaminate diesel. I filled my tractor tank with a diesel / water mixture got frtom my transfer tank a screw had come out of the top of the tank.

When the tractor stopped running I saw the fuel filter knew what happened. Drain the tank saved the fuel for the brush pile changed filter flushed line with diesel. I did have to crack one ine at the pump to push the water out of the pump. Tightened the line up and no problems. The tractor is a 2016.

These trucks are mechanical not like pwerstrokes

 

[QUOTE=hturner12;17354622]Pretty much. And, there's a big difference between a bit of water getting into the IP and getting cleared up and having it full of water and /sit/ like that. It takes some time to get some rust, and while the water won't lubricate the IP, the engine will die in short order if you've just got water anyway, so you don't have to worry about destroying it due to lack of lubrication.

If you let it sit full of water for weeks... yeah, you might have to replace IP and injectors. Most likely cost, around $1000.