diesel fuel

Have a read of this.

Regards

I've used diesel fuel that was well over 15 years old.
I'm involved in a steam railway, that also has heritage diesel electric loco's. One of our derelict diesel loco's I was fiddling around with the top of the fuel tank to remove the pick up tube to replace onto one of our operational loco's. When I pulled the ppick up tube out, it was wet it's entire length, about 16" deep.
I got some water finding paste and on the bottom of a stick, found no presence of water in the tank. There was no slime in the tank. Doing a filterability test, it passed through the filter paper at the same rate as a fresh sample.
So it was pumped out, a quantity of 800 gallons and put into the operational locomotive.
The funny thing being, the value of the fuel was worth more than we paid for the scrap value of the locomotive.

what ever you fill ,fill them to the top,
so no air and you shouldn,t get algae in it
mechpete

I would suggest the question is not how long you store it for but what you intend to use if with after a long period of storage. Clearly the BP advice sets a limit and a practical one, with plenty of caveats, of a year.

If your storage hygiene is poor then you may be able to put it into a simple, non fuel injected and common rail diesel engine without damage

But if it has been stored in containers for say one year and you were going to put it in the fuel tank of a modern day common rail diesel engine you would be taking a prudent approach of filtering it as part of the decanting process to remove water and any other particle contamination a long while before you dropped what was left into your tank

Rob

I have stored for 12 months without any issue. I did however treat with a biocide before storage, Diesel doctor I think 1ml / litre. Before using I made sure the fuel was completely clear and had no particles floating in it. I actually use translucent hdpe 25litre drums as they allow me to see any water collected at the bottom and also any impurities in the fuel. These are filled to the top and are kept in a dark place although i don't know if that matters. I use a length of wire bent at the end with fine notches engraved onto the wire. As I lower the wire into the drum, I observe that there is no loss in clarity of the etchmarks from when I submerse at top right the way to the bottom. My thoughts are that if there is any cloudiness at all in the fuel, it may not be noticable by looking in the drum, but this method will show it up. I also tend not to keep the fuel any longer than about 6 months and use and replace. I generally store about 200litres of fuel as I like the idea that in the event of a fuel shortage, I have enough to cover over 2000km