How much water in diesel is to much?

[Uplander]

I think the most important thing is not to panic. Having poured about 40 litres of water into the diesel tank and being in a remote area is a tad disturbing but is recoverable. The comments above about dangers to the engine are very real but surmountable. Anyway what we did was to pump the tank from the bottom into a clear 2 litre soft drink bottle. The water separates and can be discarded. We continued filling bottles until the diesel started coming through with no water. The transition is very definate. There obviously was a little water still in the tank as there probably always is. Having been satisfied that there was no water in the pipe to the water filter we started the engine. Watched the glass water filter for signs of water. All well. Later took the boat into roughish conditions to stir up the tank and captured a little more water. Still all well. Kept regularly checking the bowl for the next few days then back to normal.

[Squanderbucks]

One thing to be sure and do is draw out the water after allowing the fuel to go undisturbed for long enough for the water to settle out. If you run the engine and return fuel to the tank it will disperse microscopic water droplets throughout the fuel. Which would settle out after you think things are done.
Also try siphoning off the “good clear” fuel from the top first staying well above the water layer boundary. This way you only have to work with a lesser volume of water/fuel mixture.

[Davidhoy]

Originally Posted by sailingchiro

I have used the fuel pickup tube to pull out bad fuel in the past. Only need a small fuel pump on fuel line to engine. Of course unhook line BEFORE Racor to prevent re priming fuel injectors. Thanks, this is my first post.

Welcome aboard, sailingchiro!

[philiosophy]

Manuely pump all the fuel out of the tank at least twice. If you have decent sized access plates wipe out all residual liquid. As previously stated the very costly injector pump and injector problems will far surpass the effort and cost of removing all the contaminated fuel and cleaning the tank. You could possibly hire a fuel polishing company to remove the contaminated fuel. Still need to clean the tank out tho as the Algea that will grow can and will cause the problems stated above.
Keep your tanks as full as possible and treat them yearly with a Biophor diesel treatment. Thie more free space in a fuel tank the more condensation.
Then off course address what ever caused this to happen in the first place.

[RaymondR]

Fynspray Sump Pumps which are usually used to extract oil from engine sumps have a thread on the bottom onto which the nut of an olive type 1/2" copper water pipe fitting will screw. A length of pipe to reach the bottom of the tank on one of these pumps makes an excellent tool with which to check for water and remove same from a fuel tank provided you can get access from the top.

[Sea Angel1]

Yes the deck Filters can be confusing,
It happenend to me too. I Filled 30 Gallons of Water in my 60 Gallon fuel Tank. Not thought very long. Got a Pump and 4 large cans and Pumped the whole content out, and cleaned the Reservoir. Drive a Couple of Times to a good fuel Station along the Road and filled the Reservoir with Diesel. No further Problems arised.
I painted the fuel fillcap red and the water Film cap Blue. You won‘t make that mistake never Ägäin.

[zeehag]

how does one get that much water into fuel tank?? try fill fitting.
o rings fail and water enters during rains, deck washdowns, etc. funny how easily this is repaired with one lil steenky O ring. hahahahaha and rebedding.
yup your fill fittings need maintenance as well as rest of boat.
funny how quickly that water is prevented from re-entry once o ring has been changed.

[Simi 60]

This is what properly designed fuel tanks look like.
Note the sump for collecting and draining crud
And deck fillers are a no no in my opinion, better up off the floor and in a cabin side preferably under cover.

[seabreez]

Originally Posted by andreas.mehlin

A friend just managed to get maybe 5 gallons if water in 80 gallons of diesel....

Can he add alcohol to get rid of that much water?

I would not add alcohol... If you have 2 step fuel filter, the primary should be a water separator. Just drain the water by the petcock if installed. I have a Racor and water is visible in the clear bowl. Just drain the water and we are good to go.

[kmcshane]

I failed to seal my filling port on deck. After a season on the hard, this was the result in my Racor. Fortunately, I stopped there, and polished the entire 40 gallon tank into 5 gallon jerry jugs using the system in the photo.
I have a good access to the aluminum tank, cleaned it, and finished it with a fine cotton cloth before refilling. And, oh yeah, replaced and dressed the fill port o-ring.

[drewzn]

I have done this before. I went to fill up my water tank and put the hose in the diesel tank instead. It's an easy fix. I just pumped all my diesel out of my tanks through a water separator into cans. Then poured it back through the water separator into the tank.
An 80 gallon tank will be harder to do than the 20 gallon tank I had however. An solution for a tank that large is to have your diesel "cleaned", which will separate it and also remove any sediment.

[Jimmyhenry]

We had a daughter of one of the owners topping up the water tanks just before we left for Fiji from NZ. She also topped off one of the fuel tanks unknown to us!!!!!
We swapped tanks about half way to Fiji. Engine conked in about two minutes.
One other crew and I were the only ones not feeling ill in the engine area. We did not know about the water in the fuel at that stage. We bled and Rebled etc etc but no go. Till I mentioned to my mate “the water trap is full of course but what if it is full of water??”
Bingo. We drained it and sure enough only water.
Luckily the fuel tanks has release taps at their bottom. Regretfully way down in the bilge. Fumes were horrific. But using a small jug and transferring into a bucket we got out about 4 buckets of water. Then flushed out the Racor. Replaced all the fuel filters and bled everything through to the injectors again.
By now the batteries were well down. But luckily we managed to get the engine cranking and it finally started.
No damage to the injectors or the injector pump. And the engine (100hp Yanmar) is still going 15 years later.
Pete.

[Kit_L]

Re. adding a measure of sealing protection to flush-mounted deck fillers: I removed each slightly convex fuel filler cap, cleaned the internal sealing surface of the filling tube carefully, and smeared Vaseline over the screw-in cap's O-ring to make sure the filler cap seals properly.

Sea Biscuit's tanks have drain taps at the lowest points; when we checked her last week, we only drained old fuel.

Two things I take away from this thread: I will colour code the fuel and water caps, and I want to know more about what people suggest is the best annual tank treatment. Sea Biscuit has 2 x 600+litre stainless steel tanks, and I would like them to stay pristine! Thanks to everyone; excellent thread.

[kizif]

Way to much. He has to get that out. You can pump from the bottom of the tank to remove it. Water and diesel don’t mix. Water is also heavier than diesel

[Boatyarddog]

Originally Posted by Calaban-Alleria

What I would like to know is: How do you get THAT much water in a fuel tank? That is an awful lot of water.

Diesel Fuel has water in it naturally.
Often that much water signals a leak into the tank.
Deck Caps leak often, that little o-ring under the cap should be inspected regularly, it's subject to problems, drying out, damaged seal area, or plain missing.
Check your deck fill o-ring.
Cheers
SV Cloud Duster