Slime in fuel system

gutts

Veteran Member
Joined
Jul 12, 2010
Location
sunny central ct.
TDI
2002 jetta
Mother of Gawd !!
I parked a 99 with a full tank , I added diesel addictive.i let it sit for about 4 years . I am resurrecting it now . When I started it a month ago . I got a cel I think no biggie . I changed the fuel filter. The cel was for a low injection quantity . So I pull a vacuum on the fuel supply line . Seams clogged ? Pull the fuel filter I put in a few moths ago when I started messing with it . It was all Gunked up ..? I drain. The tank , weird color , like cider , smells like thinner . I start to do a injector flush . The diesel purge instantly turns a rust/cider color. I pulled the fuel sending/pick up out of the tank .there is all this sludge in the tank .
Gees It’s nasty stuff ..
 

Genesis

Top Post Dawg
Joined
Feb 26, 2003
Location
Sevier County TN
TDI
'03 Jetta Wagon
There was water in the tank; what you have in there is microbial growth (it's NOT algae, although it's commonly called that -- algae requires light.)

You CAN filter out the growth if you have a set up to do it; the fuel ITSELF will be fine. If not the only real option is to find a place that will take it and get it out of there.
 

gutts

Veteran Member
Joined
Jul 12, 2010
Location
sunny central ct.
TDI
2002 jetta
Yeah I took The fuel sender out and I wiped the awful sludge out of the bottom of the tank I can’t believe how nasty that stuff is in some places it is like incited windshield adhesive.
 

Nevada_TDI

Top Post Dawg
Joined
Aug 17, 2008
Location
Reno, sort of...
TDI
2001 Jetta TDI
I recently found the orange/rust/cider crap in my fuel pickup, and my vehicle is never parked more than 24 hours. It got through the factory filter and destroyed TWO Injection Pumps, and I changed the filter twice before I realized what a pile of garbage that was in the tank that came loose when I added Power Service. You likely saved your IP using the Diesel purge. Good job.
 

Genesis

Top Post Dawg
Joined
Feb 26, 2003
Location
Sevier County TN
TDI
'03 Jetta Wagon
The common factor here is WATER. If you get water in the fuel and it gets through the filter you're hosed.

The sad part of this is the fact that water is quite-readily detected both in-car and in the delivery system. Filling stations could detect this "in-line" and shut down the pump in question, but they don't. Many heavy-duty engines have a water probe in their fuel filter assembly that will warn you on the dash if water gets into the fuel system. A probe in the fuel pump/sender system and another one in the filter would prevent these sorts of disasters.
 

flee

Veteran Member
Joined
Sep 19, 2011
Location
Chatsworth, CA
TDI
2002 Jetta GLS wagon
A biocide to augment the tank cleaning is 'Biobor'.
It's available at marine supply stores or Amazon.
 

Genesis

Top Post Dawg
Joined
Feb 26, 2003
Location
Sevier County TN
TDI
'03 Jetta Wagon
NO!

That stuff is a halide; halides are corrosive and over time will erode the holes in your injectors, destroying the spray pattern.

GET THE DAMN WATER OUT OF THE TANK and you won't have microbial problems since they NEED water to grow. No water, no microbes. Period.

If you have problems with this the BEST option is to fabricate a way to make a water trap in the fuel system (the filter's not a bad place for it!) and put water probes there. There ARE systems that include these available, or build one. Even better would be a sensor IN THE TANK at the bottom of the sump as that would catch it immediately on a bad fill.
 

gutts

Veteran Member
Joined
Jul 12, 2010
Location
sunny central ct.
TDI
2002 jetta
Well I am going send fuel back through the lines to the tank . I will then swab the tank out with my hand/arm as best I can . I am going to run fuel through the pump and collect it in a separate container via the return line . Then a diesel purge for the pump . The whole system should be as clean as I can get .
Does this sound like a good plan ?
 

Genesis

Top Post Dawg
Joined
Feb 26, 2003
Location
Sevier County TN
TDI
'03 Jetta Wagon
The big deal is to get the water out. All of it. And have a decent filter, and you'll be fine.

Getting the gunk out is of course important too, mostly because it will clog the filter (fast!) and in extreme cases will clog the pickup.
 

MichaelB

Veteran Member
Joined
Aug 11, 2009
Location
SE Wisconsin
TDI
2014 Passat SE DSG
After reading all this .......if the OP had used Power Service White year round there would have never been a water issue in the first place. Goog luck with the cleanup!
 

Genesis

Top Post Dawg
Joined
Feb 26, 2003
Location
Sevier County TN
TDI
'03 Jetta Wagon
Not if the root cause was a bad fill, and it usually is. Demulsifying the water so it "passes through" will do SEVERE damage to the IP (and may destroy it) if that is the case.

Water doesn't get into the fuel from "condensation" despite many people's claims; I've run the calcs on this and that simply isn't how it happens. If you have a material amount of water in the tank it coming in via the fill hose.
 

MichaelB

Veteran Member
Joined
Aug 11, 2009
Location
SE Wisconsin
TDI
2014 Passat SE DSG
Not if the root cause was a bad fill,

Was IT! No one will ever know, will they? We can all theorize all we want. How long did the OP drive the car with the bad fill? Or did he just have a bad fill and park it for years?


Edit: Show us your calc's. This could have been an accumulation of many fills over time.
 
Last edited:

Genesis

Top Post Dawg
Joined
Feb 26, 2003
Location
Sevier County TN
TDI
'03 Jetta Wagon
Physics, my friend.

The vapor pressure of water is 0.023 atm. So one liter of air capacity in the tank can hold (at most) 0.017ml of (condensed, liquid) water. Of course that's the theoretical maximum AND it assumes both air at 212F to start with and then that it all condenses (neither of which is true in the real world.)

You need the water vapor in the tank to go into supersaturation for it to condense out since diesel fuel (fuel oil) does not absorb water vapor out of the air. This means you need high humidity in the air and then the air in the tank must cool enough to produce condensation. Then you must admit more humid, warm air into the tank in order to get it to happen again. Car/truck tanks are not free to communicate with the atmosphere outside; there is a vacuum/pressure regulator (to prevent the tank from collapsing or exploding) which essentially prohibits exchange except when the cap is off or under temperature changes severe enough to cause the cap to vent either direction. When you fill the tank of course you expel most of the air; what's drawn in as you drive occurs under (mild) vacuum as you consume the fuel.

I ran these calcs years ago for my boat (which had two 300 gallon tanks) for grins and giggles and determined that the expected accumulation in a tank kept half-full over a year's time, WITH an atmospheric vent (because all boat tanks ARE free-vented to the atmosphere) was approximately one once of liquid water in an environment where temperatures ranged from freezing to 95F on a seasonal basis (roughly accurate where I am) in the WORST case. At that point I stopped worrying about condensation as a potential risk but paid a LOT of attention to the possibility of getting a fill where they pumped water into the tank along with the fuel!

(My response to this was to put in a two-stage filter system with the first being a bulk filter that also had a hygroscopic element that would not pass water. Thus, if the tank pickup DID suck up water it would shut the engine down from fuel starvation rather than destroy the injectors. That plus some gauges and a manifold to make isolation and replacement easy would tell you instantly what was going on, and a bypass/priming pump made fairly easy the process of clearing it and re-priming the system, if it happened.)

In short if you have water in your fuel it's coming down the fill pipe, not condensing out of the air. And if it's coming down the fill pipe demulsifying it is exactly the wrong thing to do; the only way to deal with any material amount of water in the fuel without destroying things is to stop it from getting into the IP and physically remove it.

Incidentally if it gets through the IP and into the injectors there is a non-zero risk of it flash-boiling in the injector tip and blowing the tip off. On common-rail engines this will instantly destroy the cylinder involved because the result is that the HP fuel rail is now open to the cylinder; on a unit-injector or IP-pump engine you'll know immediately if it happens and be able to shut it down, but you're still not going to like the damage especially if the tip that is blown off goes somewhere it shouldn't, and it usually does.
 
Last edited:

BobnOH

not-a-mechanic
Joined
May 29, 2004
Location
central Ohio
TDI
New Beetle 2003 manual
Well I am going send fuel back through the lines to the tank . I will then swab the tank out with my hand/arm as best I can . I am going to run fuel through the pump and collect it in a separate container via the return line . Then a diesel purge for the pump . The whole system should be as clean as I can get .
Does this sound like a good plan ?
Good plan. Nice that we can easily get to our tanks. My take 2 cans of DP, you'll know.

Fuel additives do different stuff. For a 4 year respite you'd need a stabilizer
 

flee

Veteran Member
Joined
Sep 19, 2011
Location
Chatsworth, CA
TDI
2002 Jetta GLS wagon
NO!
That stuff is a halide; halides are corrosive and over time will erode the holes in your injectors, destroying the spray pattern.(edit)
Well you better start watching out for aircraft falling from the sky, vessels failing
at sea and even big rigs stopping in their tracks because Biobor or something just
like it is used in every jet aircraft, most marine diesel engines and many trucks.:rolleyes:
 

flee

Veteran Member
Joined
Sep 19, 2011
Location
Chatsworth, CA
TDI
2002 Jetta GLS wagon
Cummins endorses exactly two additives and never had endorsed use of anything else.
https://www.truckinginfo.com/140399/cummins-endorses-two-fuel-additives
You do what you want - I'm telling 'ya what's in there and it's chemical properties. I owned a boat with twin diesels for quite a while... and unlike many others never had any injector problems....
Your n=1. Would injector problems also likely be caused by microbes?
For that matter, many fuel docks add biocide to the fuel before it's sold.
I'm pretty sure Cummins et al endorses microbe-free fuel as well.
 
Last edited:

MichaelB

Veteran Member
Joined
Aug 11, 2009
Location
SE Wisconsin
TDI
2014 Passat SE DSG
Cummins endorses exactly two additives and never had endorsed use of anything else.

https://www.truckinginfo.com/140399/cummins-endorses-two-fuel-additives

You do what you want - I'm telling 'ya what's in there and it's chemical properties. I owned a boat with twin diesels for quite a while... and unlike many others never had any injector problems....

Well, there is the Power Service white Bottle you previously poo-pood.


" Demulsifying the water so it "passes through" will do SEVERE damage to the IP (and may destroy it) if that is the case."
 

Genesis

Top Post Dawg
Joined
Feb 26, 2003
Location
Sevier County TN
TDI
'03 Jetta Wagon
No water no microbes.

Solve the problem instead of throwing chemicals that are active enough to erode metal in the tank. It's not like there are any high-tolerance metal items in a diesel fuel system, right?
 

Genesis

Top Post Dawg
Joined
Feb 26, 2003
Location
Sevier County TN
TDI
'03 Jetta Wagon
Using PowerService White to solve a water problem is dumb. Using it to depress the cloud point in winter, which is what it's recommended for, is perfectly fine. And the gray bottle stuff is ok in any weather as it has a material lubricity component to it. In fact it's the only additive I have ever run in both my boat and TDI.
 

flee

Veteran Member
Joined
Sep 19, 2011
Location
Chatsworth, CA
TDI
2002 Jetta GLS wagon
No water no microbes.
Solve the problem instead of throwing chemicals that are active enough to erode metal in the tank. It's not like there are any high-tolerance metal items in a diesel fuel system, right?
I must be missing something.
Explain to us this system that gets rid of water before it gets into the tank, please.
And how exactly do those jets keep flying millions of miles with all this tank erosion?
 

Genesis

Top Post Dawg
Joined
Feb 26, 2003
Location
Sevier County TN
TDI
'03 Jetta Wagon
If you're having a water problem fix your FILTRATION to block it from destroying the IP and / or injectors and try to figure out who's selling you water labeled as fuel. Would you rather run corrosive chemicals all the time or get the water out of the tank and have no growth in the first place? If you don't remove the water as soon as you stop using the chems the growth will come back.

You run what you want. Injectors and IPs are expensive. I don't like buying replacements for either and choose to solve the issue instead of throwing corrosive chemicals in my tank to kill microbial growth that shouldn't be there and won't be if the tank isn't full of water.
 

MichaelB

Veteran Member
Joined
Aug 11, 2009
Location
SE Wisconsin
TDI
2014 Passat SE DSG
If you're having a water problem fix your FILTRATION to block it from destroying the IP and / or injectors and try to figure out who's selling you water labeled as fuel.
What fix do you have in place on your car to block water from destroying the IP and/or injectors that all of us dumb TDI drivers do not? Please expound!
 

Genesis

Top Post Dawg
Joined
Feb 26, 2003
Location
Sevier County TN
TDI
'03 Jetta Wagon
IF I had water-in-fuel problems (I don't) I'd mount a pre-filter that had the same element in it that I used with my boat for exactly the same reason. It's hygrophobic (will NOT pass water) and then stick a restriction (vacuum) gauge downstream of it toward the primary. As the water winds up in there the restriction gauge goes up. If it starts rising you have water in the tank that's getting into the pickup -- remove the filter, replace it then open up the tank and clean the water out!

I'd have to figure out where to mount it but I'm sure I could find somewhere that would work.

Hell, even the RACOR systems can handle that; they have a ball in the bottom that floats in water but not in fuel (in the clear bowl part.) If there's water in the fuel the ball will float and seal against the outlet, and they also have a bottom drain so you can drain the water off too.

The units I used on the boat were massively bigger (due to flow requirements) than what you need on a Jetta (Detroits flow a metric crap-ton of fuel through them as they use the fuel to cool the injectors and return MUCH more than they burn) but IF you have water-in-fuel problems that's the correct way to deal with it.
 

MichaelB

Veteran Member
Joined
Aug 11, 2009
Location
SE Wisconsin
TDI
2014 Passat SE DSG
IF I had water-in-fuel problems (I don't) I'd mount a pre-filter that had the same element in it that I used with my boat for exactly the same reason. It's hygrophobic (will NOT pass water) and then stick a restriction (vacuum) gauge downstream of it toward the primary. As the water winds up in there the restriction gauge goes up. If it starts rising you have water in the tank that's getting into the pickup -- remove the filter, replace it then open up the tank and clean the water out!

I'd have to figure out where to mount it but I'm sure I could find somewhere that would work.

Hell, even the RACOR systems can handle that; they have a ball in the bottom that floats in water but not in fuel (in the clear bowl part.) If there's water in the fuel the ball will float and seal against the outlet, and they also have a bottom drain so you can drain the water off too.

The units I used on the boat were massively bigger (due to flow requirements) than what you need on a Jetta (Detroits flow a metric crap-ton of fuel through them as they use the fuel to cool the injectors and return MUCH more than they burn) but IF you have water-in-fuel problems that's the correct way to deal with it.

Stop comparing boats you have owned to the cars we drive and give us real advice as to how to control water if we inadvertently receive some.
 

gutts

Veteran Member
Joined
Jul 12, 2010
Location
sunny central ct.
TDI
2002 jetta
Well I sent diesel back through the lines . Cleaned out what was in the tank .i took apart and cleaned the fuel sender/pickup . I ran about 3 quarts of fuel through the injection pump until it returned to a separate container clean (ish) did a diesel purge . The cel turned off about ten minutes into it . Tomorrow I will put it back together .
 

MichaelB

Veteran Member
Joined
Aug 11, 2009
Location
SE Wisconsin
TDI
2014 Passat SE DSG
Well I sent diesel back through the lines . Cleaned out what was in the tank .i took apart and cleaned the fuel sender/pickup . I ran about 3 quarts of fuel through the injection pump until it returned to a separate container clean (ish) did a diesel purge . The cel turned off about ten minutes into it . Tomorrow I will put it back together .

Nice work!:) report back when everything is in order and you are pleased with the results.
 

Genesis

Top Post Dawg
Joined
Feb 26, 2003
Location
Sevier County TN
TDI
'03 Jetta Wagon
Stop comparing boats you have owned to the cars we drive and give us real advice as to how to control water if we inadvertently receive some.
I did. You just didn't want to read or do it.

Mount a pre-filter head somewhere it will fit and put a water-blocking filter on it, along with a vacuum gauge on the output. Output of that goes to the "standard" engine fuel filter. If you see restriction (or worse, the engine shuts down for lack of fuel!) open the tank through the sender and remove the water and replace the pre-filter element. Problem solved and you will NEVER wind up with water in the IP or injectors (which will destroy one or both.)
 

MichaelB

Veteran Member
Joined
Aug 11, 2009
Location
SE Wisconsin
TDI
2014 Passat SE DSG
I did. You just didn't want to read or do it.

Mount a pre-filter head somewhere it will fit and put a water-blocking filter on it, along with a vacuum gauge on the output. Output of that goes to the "standard" engine fuel filter. If you see restriction (or worse, the engine shuts down for lack of fuel!) open the tank through the sender and remove the water and replace the pre-filter element. Problem solved and you will NEVER wind up with water in the IP or injectors (which will destroy one or both.)
Have you lost your mind? Do you really think that is a practical solution for the majority of the community here? You don't have that solution on your car, do you? What if by chance you had water induced due to no fault of your own. That is what I was asking and you come up with more impractical BS. I asked for a practical solution and you keep up with how you did it with your boat. :D
 

Genesis

Top Post Dawg
Joined
Feb 26, 2003
Location
Sevier County TN
TDI
'03 Jetta Wagon
I've never gotten a load of water in my fuel on my Jetta. If I had it would destroy something exactly ONCE, after which that would immediately go on the car.

I've simply never seen it in real life over 250,000 miles on my car. That doesn't mean it doesn't happen, just that it doesn't happen in MY experience. And it's both practical to remedy and costs FAR LESS (about $100) for the filter head, water-block filter and some hose than throwing chemicals at the problem which is both a hack and can and will do OTHER, far more-expensive damage. Show me an engine manufacturer that explicitly recommends (on their corporate letterhead) the use of such products for water demulsifiation and microbial growth and I'll change my mind.

How much is an IP or set of injectors again?

The OP here says it happened to him. I believe him, since I saw the same thing happen with my boat. Since he can't identify WHICH filling station did it to him (if he could he'd be entirely justified in making THEM pay for it) were I him I'd take defensive measures right now, assuming he intends to keep the car.

BTW the newer common-rail engines will be DESTROYED by this event -- every time. Cummins and Cat both demand water-blocking, 2 micron filtration on marine installs (and I assume so in trucks and heavy equipment too) for this very reason on all their common-rail engines.

It's my OPINION that the factory filter specs should NOT allow water to pass. It apparently does. That sucks, so if water in the fuel is an issue in your area then FIX IT with a filter system that doesn't allow that. It's not all that hard or expensive to do.
 
Last edited:
Top