Stocker Steve":181f2tia said:
Bought a diesel project tractor. Cleaned a bunch of dirt out of the tank and then pulled the primary fuel filter. The filter gaskets had swelled greatly, and It had a gummy dark brown varnish like material in it. Smelled a little like turpentine. Does this sounds like something diesel can do? Any tips on cleaning up the fuel system?
Some diesel fuel stabilizers/additives will have a turpentine smell after a while.
Symptoms of a diesel engine that has had some gasoline inadvertently added to the tank is that it will start cold and idle rough, but given throttle, it falls on it's face and dies. Once warmed up at idle, it won't start at all. I saw a mech at the dealership pull his hair out over this for 2 days, had already bled the injectors, changed the filters had run the valves, pulled and tested each injector and was about to pull the front cover off to check the cam timing when I and another mech noticed the oily rags around had a faint smell of gasoline and fuel drained from the water separator spread way too fast to be pure diesel.
Drained the tank and filters, bled the injectors again and put good diesel in and it ran like it was supposed to. The owner's son we found out, had accidentally put about a gallon of 87 oct gasoline in the tank when he borrowed the tractor one day, trying to make sure his dad got the tractor back with a full tank of fuel..
Old stale gasoline has an unmistakable smell that's hard to even get off your hands and clothes.
