Fuel tank cleaning and fuel polishing

Status
Not open for further replies.
Jun 4, 2004
292
Hunter 49 123
Have you cleaned your tank and had your fuel polished? Where are you located? How much dit it cost? thanks
 
D

Dan Johnson

Vel...

I built my own fuel polisher to extract the fuel from the tank into jerry cans, installed a Sea-Built access port in the top of the tank to clean out the tank, and pumped the fuel back into the tank. One year later and over 12 hours of cruising time and no fuel or filter problems evident. Well worth doing given the age of my H34...
 
T

tadd5181

Fuel tank cleaning

I had mine cleaned about 6 months ago. I am in San Diego. It cost $600. It is a 70 gal. tank. The cost was high because I had to have a hole cut into the top of the tank, thru which the sludge which had collected at the bottom was cleaned out (hard to do). The fuel was "cleaned" as it was taken out, through two filters I recall, and then "cleaned" again thru filters on the way back in. Since, I had added a chemical each time to keep this from happening again.
 
W

Warren Milberg

Friend of mine on Cadle Creek

(Casa Rio) right around the bend from you had his fuel polished last year. He has a Pearson 28-II with a Yanmar 2GM20F. This was a relatively expensive proposition - I think he paid over $400. He was having no fuel related engine problems when he had this done. He just thought it would get at lot crud out of his fuel and tank once we switched over to ULSD fuel. He has had numerous engine failures since, all of which required a tow. Is it related to the fuel polishing? Who knows? Am I having this done on my boat? Nope. Just use the freshest fuel you can find, use a water/crud separating filter, add a cetane booster if necessary and maybe a bit of "Pri-D" and change your filters every year....

But if you want the name and number of the mobile fuel polisher this friend used, let me know and I'll get it from him.
 
C

Carl

Had mine tank cleaned 4 years ago

and have had no fuel related problem since.. I do use a biocide and make sure to
burn thru a couple of tanks of fuel during the summer.
 
J

John

Fuel Polished in 4-'07

I purchased my boat last year and knew she had been inactive for some time. My wife and i moved her from Norfolk Va. to NC and wanted good fuel for the trip. The cost was $250 for poloshing. She has a 70 gal fuel tank and was full. The sludge was not removed and I have replaced the fuel filters on the engine and genset twice since. I plan on removing the sludge in the bottom of the tank before we take off to the Bahama islands in January. Hope this helps. good luck.
 
Dec 2, 1999
15,184
Hunter Vision-36 Rio Vista, CA.
If you are going to spend $700, you should build your own.

If you are going to spend $700 to polish your fuel, you may as well build your own system.

If this is done properly, you could also use it as a backup system if the primary system gets plugged up.
 
D

Dan Johnson

Steve...

I built my polisher for around $250 using commercial fuel transfer components from Tractor Supply. I've used the polisher to clean the fuel in the tanks of three other dock neighbors and all have had no fuel problems ever since (using new filters too, of course). Sta-bil and a bio-cide are the only additives all of us have used since the cleaning.
 
N

Neil McDonald

Sample First

Before rushing out to spend good money to polish your fuel tank , why don't you spend $10 on a turkey baster, add a short piece of extension tube to it and take a fuel sample from the bottom of the fuel tank? Drop this sample in a clear glass jar and see what the fuel in the bottom of the tank looks like? Then decide what you want to do.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.