What Do You Do With Your Fuel Tank/ System

[maysailor]

The only thing I would add regarding filling tank is, I have learned to only fill to top of stainless steal tank not to top of filler pipe otherwise I find that as the weather warms up diesel comes out of my fuel tank breather and makes a mess of my painted deck and then runs down the hull.

[Bikertov]

5 minutes ago, maysailor said:

The only thing I would add regarding filling tank is, I have learned to only fill to top of stainless steal tank not to top of filler pipe otherwise I find that as the weather warms up diesel comes out of my fuel tank breather and makes a mess of my painted deck and then runs down the hull.

That advice goes for cars too.

[RumPunch]

21 hours ago, Vaughan said:

No I don't.

In a lifetime in the inland waterways boating business, I had never heard of it until I joined this forum.

During  a hard winter, you will get a deposit of paraffin wax which separates out from the diesel  when it freezes in the pipes.  This is harmless but it has a thick consistency which can clog filters and sediment traps.

This why we always change fuel filters in the spring, after the cold weather is over.

I believe it is this wax residue that may be what is known as diesel bug.

In aviation Cladosporium Resinae is a known issue - as diesel and aviation fuel are very similar, is the bug too ?

[Vaughan]

46 minutes ago, RumPunch said:

In aviation Cladosporium Resinae is a known issue - as diesel and aviation fuel are very similar, is the bug too ?

Blimey! I think we are getting a bit above my "pay grade" here!

I have always understood aviation fuel to be basically kerosene, as a refinement of paraffin, although I know that a Wessex or Wasp helicopter will run for a while on diesel, if you have nothing else to fill it up with!.

When I was involved with helicopters on RFA ships, the fuel was classed as AVCAT and for jet aircraft it was AVTUR, for which the civilian version was called JET A1. It always had to be carefully sampled for water contamination before re-fuelling an aircraft, especially if it had been sitting in a ship's AVCAT tanks for a while.

I am sure you are probably right but I am not sure this applies to the problem of fuel supply on Broads cruisers. All I can say is that it has never been a problem for hire boats, in my experience.

[Smoggy]

Aviation fuel should always be checked for water at the start of the day before the first fuel up, I pick up avgas 100ll fairly regularly and have to wait for the check if the first one.

Theres a few different types of aviation fuel, avgas is more or less a well leaded petrol even though the LL designation is supposed to be low lead, we scrape lots of lead sludge from inside engines from the stuff at work.