Fuel Polishing good or bad??

[Astral Blue]

Originally Posted by WorldWind

Luckily we already have an access port on top.
My main concern is switching from an aluminum tank to plastic at this point.
Any thoughts on which is better anyone?
It's only 17 gallons,I believe I'd have room for 25-30 for extended cruising,rather than Jerry jugs on the deck.

In repowering my boat, I decided to switch my tank from aluminum to plastic. Although aluminum tanks have many advantages over their steel counterparts, I have seen them corrode on numerous occasions, especially if the tank is located in an area susceptible to exposure to salt water. Although my aluminum tank did not have corrosion, I still decided to go with plastic since replacing the tank in the future would involve removing the engine.

I purchased a plastic tank made by Moeller. They have a huge variety of sizes and shapes and are very reasonably priced. The tank I purchased was considerably light than its aluminum counterpart.

One word of caution, though. I have seen older plastic tanks (from the 1980's) that lost their ability to contain fumes within the tank. These were gasoline tanks. I'm sure different polymers were used back then and there have been considerable advances in the type of material used in today's tanks, but I thought I'd share it anyway. I called Moeller and they indicated the polymers they use should keep fumes contained for the life of the tank, which is estimated to be at least 10 years.

[Pelagic]

In a perfect world, David’s proactive advice is enough, but the reality of cruising is that you will get fuel in remote places with questionable age and quality.

Treatment with a bactericide can actually make it worse since it creates tiny tiny hard black kernels of dead bacteria, which can pass thru or quickly foul your filters and clog up the injectors.

According to various shipyards, treatment then polishing by centrifuge is the only way to repair biologically contaminated fuel.

[SimonV]

They pump the fuel out and into a filter setup then into a centrifuge.

The filters I get but the centrifuge has me baffled.???

[Pelagic]

study this

http://local.alfalaval.com/en-us/key...echonology.pdf

[Free Agent]

http://www.cruisersforum.com/forums/...tml#post924670

[Florida Mike]

You can stop most fuel contamination problems by taking the fuel off the very bottom of the tank run it through decent filters. This gets a little bit of crud in every fill up instead of letting it build up in the tank. I have often wondered what the thought process was that says to have pick up’s off the bottom so that you can accumulate crud and not getting it in the filters until you get into rough seas and your engine quits because the crud got stirred up and then picked up in large quantities. If I’m going to lose an engine from bad fuel I would rather it happen just after I left the fuel dock then when trying to get into the pass on a rough night. Just my two cents, Mike.