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For various reasons I haven’t been able to use my boat much over the last couple of years, so the diesel I have in the tanks is about 2.5 years old. Each 200 gal tank is 1/2 full. I took the boat out a couple times recently and it fouled brand new 30 micron racor filters after burning just 50 gallons (meaning the vac gauge went from 2″ to 10″ on both). The filters were also noticeably dark/dirty.
My plan is to try and run the boat to burn through the rest of the fuel asap, changing filters regularly as they reach 10″, but leaving the on-engine filter with the thinking that the racors should protect them. Then when tanks are finally low I’ll fill up with clean diesel and change all filters.
Is this a sound plan, or is it risky to burn old diesel? I haven’t noticed any water in the clear racor bowls and the fuel in the bowls looks clean. I also plan to sue Biobor MD additive, thinking that it should improve the crappy diesel.
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Vessel Name: Tenacious
Engines: 6BTA 5.9 330's - "Seaboard Style"
Location: Long Island, NY
Country: USA
Your Racor is not good enough to fully protect the last chance filter, especially with the crud you are sending to it. Running the fuel through the filtering system is the way to deal with this fuel but a single Racor 30 leaves a lot of room for improvement and puts the last chance in danger so change that one out as well. Here’s two pics of my last chance filters cut open for inspection to portray what I am explaining. One picture is after 150 engine hours with a single Racor 900 with 10mic filter (not the 30mic you are using). The other pic is 160 engine hours after installed the SMX double double. And a side by side of the two images. And I turn over my fuel and tanks are clean…
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