Asphaltene? Quick search looks like it, how to remedy

Blacksheep10

Blacksheep10

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Just cut this saddle tank in half to cut down a couple foot and add hydro resi to it. The bottom of the tank is coated in essentially road tar. Thinking likely asphaltene. Brake clean doesn't do much, nor xylene, acetone loosens it. Didn't have lacquer thinner on hand. What is the best product to remove this **** with, and then there is the other tank. This is on an N14 I put injectors in a couple years ago, and it has sat since. Getting it running to put a grain bed on it. Assuming the other primary tank has the same ****. Do I need to pull it and try to flush with solvents somehow or are some of the products on the web advertised as good enough to reconstitute them and run through while changing filters adequate? Headed to town to see if they have anything. Looks like most of the advertised "removers" are to be used as fuel additive and ran, letting the **** mix with the fuel again and running it through the system hoping the filters catch it. Advice from somebody who has gone through it?
 
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M92PV4U said:
Seafoam, engine crankcase cleaner this stuff
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Are you saying to put a full dose of that in the fuel tank that I’m going to be running on with a full tank of fuel to try to disperse it? I’m curious of whether I should pull the tank and dump it full of whatever solvent I land on and swish it around with the skid steer and forks and then try to drain it out of the bottom and then run it. I don’t want to be constantly going through filters on something that sits most of its life
 
Blacksheep10 said:
That is mainly why I posted here, I remembered somebody on here had this same thing but I couldn’t remember who. Everybody else I have talked to you about it locally has never heard of an asphaltene
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Might want to try something like a HD varnish stripper. Pour/wipe it on and let it soak a bit and see if it'll scrape off.

edit: Actually I just remembered having a gas tank like that. I put some gas in it with some small gravel and rolled it around and back and forth. I took a few times but it cleaned it up.
 
Asphaltenes the bane of any old engine running the new junk fuel. N14’s are pretty much the worst of all the engines I have that create this junk. What happens is these old engines pump 100% of max power fuel into the head at all times. So when the engine only needs 25% of the fuel the rest gets heated up to the temp of the sun then dumped back into the fuel tank. When it cools it precipitates asphaltenes.

Me I would clean that **** our however you can now that it’s open. A steam cleaner would be the best answer.

The only thing I have found to solve this issue is that power clenze 9007. When I first started I had to dose the tanks a few times with a cleaning dose of the additive and fresh fuel. The additive is super pricey at like $65 a gallon the last time I bought a barrel of it. So any cleaning you can do now is money in the bank.

Currently I mix 100% of my fuel with a 1000:1 dose of that additive and it has solved that problem. It just creates the now I need to buy a $3600 barrel of additive every 7-8 months type problem. My fuel filter usage has gone down 90% on these old engines since I started blending my fuel.

I hate this new fuel
 
Blacksheep10 said:
That is mainly why I posted here, I remembered somebody on here had this same thing but I couldn’t remember who. Everybody else I have talked to you about it locally has never heard of an asphaltene
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Took me a good year and a half before a random salesman dropped by and knew exactly how to solve my problem. It just so happened to have a **** black filter laying by the bench when he stopped in. He scraped some off tossed it in fresh fuel dumped some additive in and it dissolved it as he was talking.

Only guy I have ever talked to who even knows about asphaltenes and how to solve it. Still when I talk about it everyone thinks I’m crazy. They always ask How can a cleat fuel make asphalt?

Stupid
 
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Blacksheep10 said:
Are you saying to put a full dose of that in the fuel tank that I’m going to be running on with a full tank of fuel to try to disperse it? I’m curious of whether I should pull the tank and dump it full of whatever solvent I land on and swish it around with the skid steer and forks and then try to drain it out of the bottom and then run it. I don’t want to be constantly going through filters on something that sits most of its life
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You can use that stuff to manually clean the Asphaltene or add it to the fuel. I manually clean what I can with 5007 and then add it to the fuel.
 
ThePanzerFuhrer said:
Asphaltenes the bane of any old engine running the new junk fuel. N14’s are pretty much the worst of all the engines I have that create this junk. What happens is these old engines pump 100% of max power fuel into the head at all times. So when the engine only needs 25% of the fuel the rest gets heated up to the temp of the sun then dumped back into the fuel tank. When it cools it precipitates asphaltenes.

Me I would clean that **** our however you can now that it’s open. A steam cleaner would be the best answer.

The only thing I have found to solve this issue is that power clenze 9007. When I first started I had to dose the tanks a few times with a cleaning dose of the additive and fresh fuel. The additive is super pricey at like $65 a gallon the last time I bought a barrel of it. So any cleaning you can do now is money in the bank.

Currently I mix 100% of my fuel with a 1000:1 dose of that additive and it has solved that problem. It just creates the now I need to buy a $3600 barrel of additive every 7-8 months type problem. My fuel filter usage has gone down 90% on these old engines since I started blending my fuel.

I hate this new fuel
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Yes, the tank I have cut open I knew one way or another I would get it clean and with scraping and lacquer thinner I pretty much have. I’m kind of worried the other tank has a quarter inch of this **** on the bottom and whether or not I should remove it from the truck and try to remedy this or just put a bunch of that stuff you linked in there and let it resolve itself over time. Problem being, as a grain truck it gets driven roughly once a year.
ETA the problem I am having is, with the tank cut open when I use solvent it kind of dissolves it into this slurry of chunks of **** that would be a ****ing nightmare on a fuel filter. There is no good way to really get the intact tank actually clean of all of these goo globs without cutting it open. I don’t think I would ever feel confident that I got all of it out whereas if this miracle stuff that I just ordered a gallon of will slowly reconstitute it and send it through without ruining anything, I might just stay that course
 
Top layer came off like thicker than molasses goo. Very sticky. A pile would self level in 10 minutes in the pan.
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Any middle stuff the lacquer thinner would dissolve with enough scrubbing on it with a rag. The hard stuff on the bottom was manual scraper only.
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So what happens if you don't clean it? For those of us who haven't dealt with it.
 
Rooney77 said:
So what happens if you don't clean it? For those of us who haven't dealt with it.
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For me it just plugged fuel filters in like 2-3 days of running. Worse on equipment that bounce up and down the road suspending the asphalt in the diesel.
 
ThePanzerFuhrer said:
For me it just plugged fuel filters in like 2-3 days of running. Worse on equipment that bounce up and down the road suspending the asphalt in the diesel.
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But you started pouring the magic mystery tonic in without pulling the tanks off and cleaning them and it was solved?
 
Blacksheep10 said:
But you started pouring the magic mystery tonic in without pulling the tanks off and cleaning them and it was solved?
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Yeah I just started adding the crap. Who knows the bottoms of my tanks could still be black for all I know. I did had to use a lot of it at first to get it calmed down. I put like a half gallon in each time on my problem genset for the first 5-6 fill ups.
 
Thank you, I'll just throw a bunch in each N14 truck and spin on new filters and monitor.
 
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