Water in Diesel

We had a major rainfall last night (the most I've ever seen in our area by far) and my idiot son left the cap was left off my auxiliary fuel tank. The truck is diesel and a lot of water got into the tank. Luckily, I noticed the cap off before I started it. I noticed that diesel fuel is heavier than water. Does anyone know how I can get the water out? Any suggestions?

Reply to
Muskie
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Specific gravity of diesel fuel : .82-.95 at 60 degrees F Specific gravity of water : 1.0 at 60 degrees F

Diesel fuel has a lower specific gravity, therefore FLOATS above water. Drain a few gallons from the BOTTOM of your tank.

Reply to
bomar

Yes sir, diesel is heavier than water. Thats why the petcock is at the bottom of the fuel/water separator on highway trucks and heavy equipment.

Reply to
Demon

No true. WTF does the petcock location have to do with it?

Reply to
bomar

"Demon" wrote in news:5RAsc.577771$oR5.36673 @pd7tw3no:

equipment.

uhhhhhh NO. fuel is lighter than water. KB

Reply to
Kevin Bottorff

It is at the bottom to drain the heavier water. If the diesel were heavier then the petcock would drain all the diesel and leave the water behind.

Reply to
Martin Rogoff

Speaking of petcocks, when I recently had to drain the water from the filter on my '03 F250, I was dismayed to find a set screw requiring a 6MM hex wrench. (You'd think Ford would throw in a $1.00 wrench on a $40K truck, right? Nope.) I had to carefully reach up while on my back and loosen the screw just enough to let the water drain while being careful to not let it come all the way out lest the fuel start pouring out. I placed a container on the ground to catch the water/fuel mix, but most of it ran down my arm. What *crappy* engineering. I'm wondering if there's a petcock available or some other solution that is more forgiving that the current design.

Reply to
XLanManX

Diesel fuel has a specific gravity of .84 0r 52.1 lbs.per cu foot, water is

1.00 0r 62.4 lbs.per cu foot. Water is heavier. Jeff
Reply to
JSMMV

Actually as I stated above the specific gravity of diesel fuel is a range (that varies with the exact distillate), and all liquids vary in specific gravity depending on temperature. Non-the-less, all diesel fuel is LIGHTER than water and will float above, despite idiotic comments to the contrary.

Reply to
bomar

Ahhhhhhhhh typo, switch diesel and water. Fingers moving faster than brain. The petcock is at the bottom of the cylinder to to drain off water from the fuel system. As was said.

Reply to
Demon

BTW bomar, go f*ck yourself.

Reply to
Demon

I couldn't agree with you more. I have a 2004 F350 and discovered the same thing when I first crawled under it to drain the collector. I had a 1999 and a 2001, both F250s, with the 7.3L PSD and the drain procedure was to move the lever on the collector that was located on the top of those engines. A metal tube went down the engine from the collector. Unfortunately, it did not go down far enough so the first time I did it, it made a mess underneath the engine. The next time I got a short length of plastic tubing and extended the tube into a gallon bottle. Ford has never been smart on this process from my experience but this new design is even more horrendous since I cannot see any way to bypass this "engineering brilliance"...:-)

Reply to
Robin Brumfield

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