The grandparents lake cabin has about 700 gallons of old fuel. Everybody suspects it's about 1978 vintage. It smells like ultra HIGH sulphur diesel, is a clear amber color, pours like diesel and works great for starting fires. The old furnace quit and was replaced with an electric unit so the fuel has sat in these two tanks in the basement ever since.
Any way to test it? An ad for Pri-D says it can refresh old fuel, anybody ever use it? It's a chunk of change worth of fuel at todays prices.

Any thoughts on using it in my 96 and 97? thanx, cd

 

I would be concerned with water in the fuel, as well as bacteria/algae. Do you have a way to filter it?

 

Power Service introduced a product called Bio Kleen

http://www.powerservice.com/bk/default.asp?view=app

 

Pour some of that in the night before and it should be usable the day.

 

I filter all my fuels with a 2 micron Bio-Tek filter from Cim-Tek. It's media swells and stops flow when it gets water in it and works great for filtering wmo with a little coolant in the mix. I found an old Tuthill lube pump (5 gal/min at 200psi) to drive the stuff through the filter. I'll give the stuff a try but at a 50/50 mix with some new fuel.

 

Sounds like a plan.

 

If it looks clear I would not hesitate to use it.

Don't stir it up, but draw it off and leave any water that might be in the tank behind.

It probably does have algae in it, but if it looks clear just run it and add a biocide once in a while to keep the algae from building up, if there is any. The algae will look like a black sludge in your filter, like dirt. It will be on the surface of the tank at the bottom. Where the water is.

When you have used all that you can get without getting water and sludge, add more biocide to your tank and call it good. You just got 700 gallons of free fuel that your mechanical injection system will think is yummy.

I would definately run it and, at the same time, be careful not to get the sludge and water off the bottom. Be ready to change a filter once in a while.

You might be surprised to see how bad boat fuel tanks can get and how old the fuel can be. Lots of rust, water and algae. The only thing that happens is clogged fuel filters from sloshing around in the ocean and being sent to the engine. In your case you can leave most of that stuff behind. Enjoy the ride!

 

Thanks guys for the info. The fuel removal has started, 105 gallons at a time. It's amazing how good the stuff looks and smells after 30+ years. I wonder what a batch of this new stuff would look like under the same conditions.

 

I've been using the old fuel mixed with 25% new stuff and can't tell the difference. Just came across some transformer oil and need to get it tested for pcb's before giving it a try. cd

 

Its vintage diesel. I wouldnt use it. Sell it like fine wine for like 10X the going price......

 

Well......I've got a couple thousand miles with the old fuel and my mileage is up to nearly 23 mpg! This old stuff doesn't smoke at all, even though I've been adding about 1 ounce of 2 stroke oil/gal just in case it's got a lube problem. The new stuff is substandard! Sounds like the new CJ oils. I'm very happy with the old and will start mixing it with the transformer oil I stumbled into. I haven't bought any fuel in about 3 months which makes me very happy. My goal is to live to see the day when we don't need "their" oil any longer!