Algae In Fuel
 

neighbor went on a trip from cali to minnesota to yellowstone and a little outside of hitting yellowstone his truck quit. turned out he had a lot of algae in the fuel and clogged his filter and killed the injectors too. The local dealer there said his tank was growing algae.. now is that possible, or did he get a bad tank of fuel. the dealer also stated he should run bio clean through his system now and then... is this good for it or does it harm the lube of the fuel?

was he running bio diesel?? Im assuming he was, this is one of the problems with bio because if it sits to long it will start growing algae, now if this was regular diesel then i dont know why he would have unless it was a heavy mix of bio/#2.:humm:

he was running just#2 and last place he got fuel was kind of run down as it was the only place around. I think he got a bad load of fuel and the dealer was trying to make it sound like this was growing in his tank. He drove from redding ca to minnesota with no issues. He said it was about 30 min after filling up at the last place he ran into problems.

it is rare, but it is possible, especially if there was very much water in the tanks at the place where he got it. the algae could have started in their tanks and transfered through the pump. there are actually some microbs that will thrive in Diesel...:argh:
it also takes timefor the algae to clog everything up, it could have been there for a while, and yes, it is a good idea to run a bit of bio-clean through the tanks every once in a while, it does no harm, it can only help prevent repair bills...

Tell him to go get some racore biocide and put two ounces in the tank. Make sure he has some spare filters because it will kill the algae almost instantly and it will come through the lines to the filter which will clogg the filter quickly. I had a very very similar incident happen to me about two years ago, had to use the biocide and change filters and I was good to go.

they flushed the whole system at the shop. went through 3 fuel filters before they figured out the problem after they changed injectors etc. good thing he had his warranty still. Just seems kind of strange to me that he drove the truck from here to minnesota and a few other places then on his way to yellowstone on his last fill up it goes wrong. as he just had truck serviced before he left. and has never run bio in it.

I'm surprised that the warranty covered it if indeed it was faulty fuel.

they didn't know faulty fuel till after injectors were done and they changed the fuel filter.. kind of hard to charge when you stated under warranty

As an old truck driver I can tell you YES algae does grow in diesel, in the big tanks on trucks you can shine a flashlight into the tank and if the bottom is brown you got algae, there are a few good additives to kil and get rid of it, but as mentioned you better have a few fuel filters. After running a few tanks of bio diesel (B20)which act like a solvent, it will clean the system, again have a few filters on hand, and make the bottom of the fuel tank shine like it was polished! Once a system is clean you can run biodiesel, or #2 Diesel. Yes if you go to some old place with a nasty pump out back and they only sell fuel to the old guy down the road, good chance your going to get old dirty diesel, complete with water and algae. #2 diesel doesn't store well. Stay with a busy high turnover station and normally you wont have problems.

I have ben useing the kill em bio medic and bio clean now for a year now in my trk and can not get rid of the algae my fuel looks like used oil it will clear up for a few tanks by adding 12 oz for 140 gal just to have it return and i am not running bio fuel and use an avg of 500 to 600 gals a week the tanks have ben cleand twice and lines replacet geting around 100 to 200 miles on a 25 mic filter not sure what to try next