Diesel fuel polishing

Risingson

Risingson

Active Member
Jun 12, 2020
182
Cos cob ct
Boat Info
1999 410 express 3116’s
Engines
Cat 3116 350 hp
Looking to have my fuel polished. I have been quoted a price of
180.00 set up
100.00 hour to polish
Estimate 260 gallons to polish. I put app
100 hours on cat 3116’s a season.
Didn’t like how filters racors looked in the fall.
Is this a decent price?
 

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Are you using @fwebster 's fuel additive advice? If you are, and just shocked your tanks, that's what the filters will look like if you have a lot of bacteria growing in your tanks. Change your filters aggressively and they will clean up.
 
Don’t know anything about fwenster’s advise I change my racors ever 50 hours genie included. Got fuel during the summer at a distance marina. Usually get my fuel at my marina and never let tanks get below 1/4 tank. Pretty much always run full tanks. Except after a long trip.
 
Risingson said:
Don’t know anything about fwenster’s advise I change my racors ever 50 hours genie included. Got fuel during the summer at a distance marina. Usually get my fuel at my marina and never let tanks get below 1/4 tank. Pretty much always run full tanks. Except after a long trip.
Click to expand...
I would search for his Diesel Fuel Management article and follow it to the letter. Since you haven't shocked, I would have them polished. Then follow his advice.
 
Those don't look too terrible, and I think you could easily treat this yourself. However, looks/color of the filter are not the best measure of when to change fuel filters (see restriction gauge below). This procedure is a DIY version of what you'll pay the pro to do. If the contamination is not too bad, might be worth a shot. If your filling up filters every 10 minutes, that's a time to call in the pros.

I would immediately shock treat the tanks with a shock level of BioBor or biocide of your choosing and 1 80 oz bottle of Power Service Clean Diesel in each tank. This combo will kill the algea/slime/bugs, help get rid of water and allow the filters to remove the remnants as they are designed to do.

Change the all fuel filters (both Racor and on engine). Sounds like you just did this, so good for now. Continue to change as needed. To assist with determining when filters need changing, get a set of fuel filter restriction gauges for your Racors from designated engineer. The ones with a drag pointer are $75 each. When you start approaching 10 In of Hg its time to swap them out.

Get new O- rings on your fuel filler caps. The algae bugs need water. This is a likely entrance point. Some water will get in regardless through the vent/condensation.

If nothing else, going forward, add a maintenance amount of Biocide at every fill up, or if an unknown fuel source give it a shock treatment. Getting Franks write up is well worth the price of admission.
 
One other thing as I look at your picture a little closer. Did you feel the Filter?? If it had a slimy feel, then bacteria/algae would be my guess. If it was sticky, that could be Asphaltenes which are chemical compounds that as I understand it are a byproduct of the more modern distilling process and have become more prevalent with modern distillation processes and the advent of low sulfur diesel (and that is the low IQ version!!).
 
My 2 cents as they say. I always change racors and CAT fuel secondary filters annually. Run 100+ hours per year on average. (except for COVID this year) 2 years ago, fueled up on the hard from a reputable dealer and noticed that the racors were fouled shortly after launching. Followed fwebster's advice, shocked the system and have been using additive since then. Installed vacuum gauges on racors which should indicate restricted flow in the future.
 
I was thinking about this last night. I'm not totally convinced its microbial.

Before I did anything, I would call CAT and get an SOS kit and have the fuel analyzed and see what were dealing with. For less than $50 you would have some expert advice on the quality of your fuel, and you could make a better decision about your fuel system health and how to deal with it.

If its microbial, treat as outlined above. If its something else, it may not require anything except ongoing fuel and fuel system maintenance.
 
Risingson said:
Looking to have my fuel polished. I have been quoted a price of
180.00 set up
100.00 hour to polish
Estimate 260 gallons to polish. I put app
100 hours on cat 3116’s a season.
Didn’t like how filters racors looked in the fall.
Is this a decent price?
Click to expand...

To answer the Op's initial question since we got off on tangents, is I don't think it's unreasonable rates. Did they give you a total price? I'd imagine the total bill is several hundred $ by the time its added up.

However, as I noted above, I'm not convinced this is necessary just yet. I'd recommend having the fuel analyzed (CAT SOS) and make an informed decision.
 
Are you changing them at 50 hours out of necessity and do they always look like that? You should be able to go much longer so maybe this is not a new problem.
 
Not a necessity I just change the recor’s mid season. Always have done it that way.
 
Not dumb at all. You have to be a sponsor (donate to the site). I just realized while viewing this thread I had let mine lapse and I joined again as a Gold sponsor for $50 for the year. Its the best investment I've made in boat ownership, as I've saved 10's of 1000's getting info/advice on how to fix various issues on my Sea ray. And it a pretty great group of people helping out with all the ownership issues.

Once your a member, it under Technical Articles/Tutorials.

Dave
 
From what those filter elements look like I don't think polishing is necessary, yet. The fuel needs to be shocked with an algicide like BioBor which will kill the bug then get on a routine fuel treatment as the previous link instructs. Shock meaning 5X the maintenance amount. You may have to change the Racor filter elements quite often for a while but things will settle down. The issue I would be concerned with is water in the bottom of the fuel tanks; that is the root cause of the algae. But, again a regiment of the proper fuel treatment will disperse the water into the fuel and get it out of the tanks depending upon how much water is there. The last thing is to run boat, run the engines, burn fuel, agitate the fuel, and keep the fuel tanks full. Full tanks reduce the tank "breathing"; tank breathing is the primary reason water gets into them.
My last boat (400DA) had a significant algae problem, like fuel lines getting plugged up, that took me three months to get through including polishing and Mr. Webster's gracious advice. My 52DB when I bought it has an ever so slight back powdering in one of the Racor filters; I jumped right on the treatment regiment and never an issue since.
Tom

As an edit - are you seeing water in the Racor filter bowls? If not I suspect there is not a significant water issue in the fuel tanks and the recommended fuel treatment will abate.
 
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If you don't have water in your tanks, you will not have a live bacteria problem. Running the engines will essentially polish the fuel as much of the fuel run through the filter gets returned to the tank rather than burned. Keep changing filters and you will see improvement as the dead bacteria are cleaned out. Then follow a normal additive schedule when fueling.

If you do have water in the tank, you need to get rid of it or the problem will continue. If you have a common rail engine, be careful about your choice of additive. You want to demulsify the water so that your filter system will catch it. An emulsifier will send the water through to be burned and can damage the injectors on a common rail engine. If you have access to the tank, you can use a water detecting paste on a dowel and see how much water is at the bottom of the tank. If you find a layer of water at the bottom of the tank, fuel polishing may be the best choice.

Another problem could be asphaltines caused by degraded fuel. This can cause black sludge on the filter that is easy to mistake for bacteria.
 
I have never seen water in any of my racors
I burn 1800 to 2000 gallons a year. Always buy from same marina that pumps lots of Diesel. Except for one trip last year.
 
I like yours better...my recor filters today. Maybe I need to polish my tanks.

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