The following notice has come to our attention. Although Jet fuel is involved it is slightly possible that it may extend to diesel fuels since they both come from the same cut and same pipelines. Will follow up to our posters any thing more.
FAASafety.gov --------------------------------------------------------
My experience with contaminated fuel is caused by water getting into underground storage tanks. If the alert is from the south east US it's likely results of the hurricanes though I'm curious why it's taken so long to show up.
Otoh a stalled locomotive doesn't worry me as much as a stalled plane!
Modeling the Cleveland and Pittsburgh during the PennCentral era starting on the Cleveland lakefront and ending in Mingo junction
So the blockages occur with icing in both the filters and going through the nozzles, due to cold temperatures at altitude? I'd have thought it more likely some kind of crystalline waxing that the lighter fractions in Jet A would normally preclude, or some other solid or effectively-solid contaminant that stays suspended in pumped fuel...
I'm reminded of Standard Oil's "Final Filter," back in the 1960's.
Standard installed filters on the discharge hoses of all of their gas station pumps. They advertised that it was to improve the quality of the gasoline being delivered to their customers.
Rumor had it that they had a problem with rust in their storage tanks, or something along that line, so the filters were necessary...
We had a locomotive that sat for several years - when it was reactivated we watched the fuel pressure closely and regular fuel filter changes were the order of the day.
Larry Resident Microferroequinologist (at least at my house) Everyone goes home; Safety begins with you My Opinion. Standard Disclaimers Apply. No Expiration Date Come ride the rails with me! There's one thing about humility - the moment you think you've got it, you've lost it...
I remember the Final Filter and how heavily it was advertised at the time. Some of the ads mentioned that the filter element was replaced periodically and the system was interlocked in such a way that the element had to be installed properly for fuel to flow.
I also remember that Standard Oil (Amoco) was the only gasoline retailer in our area to have such a device on its pumps.
Up date bulletin that says problem appears to be limited to the Omaha airport (KOMA) general aviation and military aircraft.
-- FAASafety.gov -------------------------------------------------------- Special Notice- Fuel Contamination- Update Notice Number: NOTC7513 SPECIAL..NOTICE.. THE FAA CONTINUES TO INVESTIGATE A FUEL CONTAMINATION PROBLEM. SUBSTANTIAL EVIDENCE INDICATES THE CONTAMINATION HAS BEEN ISOLATED TO GENERAL AVIATION AND MILITARY AIRCRAFT AT EPPLEY AIRFIELD, OMAHA, NE (KOMA) DURING THE TIME PERIOD NOVEMBER 18-20, 2017. FAA RECOMMENDS THAT ALL AIRCRAFT OPERATORS CHECK NOTAMS FREQUENTLY FOR POSSIBLE CHANGES TO THIS ONG
ruderunner My experience with contaminated fuel is caused by water getting into underground storage tanks. If the alert is from the south east US it's likely results of the hurricanes though I'm curious why it's taken so long to show up.
During the Eastern Canada ice storm of January 1998 diesel fuel deliveries became hard to arrange, and CP ended up sucking every last bit out of their storage tanks at Agincourt yard in Toronto, right down to the water layer at the bottom (it had formed bit by bit from years of condensation).
It turns out there is a type of microbe which lives right at the oil/water interface in such a situation, and when placed in warm, heated (by hot surplus fuel returning from the injector) locomotive fuel tanks the little guys multiplied like crazy.
CP had problems with clogged fuel filters for months after that storm.
Greetings from Alberta
-an Articulate Malcontent
Yep, it happens with diesel. Not sure if it does with lighter fuels like kerosene or jet fuel.
British Airways Flight 38 a Boeing 777 brought down by icing of the fuel at the inlet to the heat exchanger designed to warm the fuel. The first 777 lost in a crash. Amazingly there were no fatalities.
BA Flt 38
John Beaulieu
It does happen with jet fuel. IIRC, an additive called Prist was used to reduce bacterial growth in jet fuel tanks.
SD70M-2DudeIt turns out there is a type of microbe which lives right at the oil/water interface in such a situation, and when placed in warm, heated (by hot surplus fuel returning from the injector) locomotive fuel tanks the little guys multiplied like crazy.
Those microbes (or their cousins) in home heating oil can also eat through a steel oil tank - don't ask how I know this.
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
OK! How do you Know this!
Probably because he had SRB in high-sulfur home heating oil, and sulfide corrosion attacked untreated steel inside the tank until it began to pinhole, perhaps along the whole oil/water level line around the tank. At which point you can't fix the tank other than to pour an elastomer liner...
MiningmanOK! How do you Know this!
When I moved from Florida back to Maryland, my oil tank was near empty - I orderd a tank of fuel oil - a day or two after the delivery I was in the vicinity of the oil tank and smelled a heavy oder of oil. Felt underneath the tank an could feel the distinch slipperyness of oil. Called my oil vendor and together we observed a number of micropinholes in the old tank. So plans were made to replace the tank. Vendor ordered a company to pump the oil out of my old tank, 225 gallons removed at about $2 a gallon and it could not be reused account the microbe contamination. Old tank disconnected, punctured in a number of places and removed. New tank installed ($1800) and new tank filled with 230 gallons at about $2.50 a gallon.
I suspect the old tank dated from when the house was built in 1953 and it lasted until 2008 - the microbes don't work fast.
Miningman OK! How do you Know this!
It is published widely, and disseminated to home policy owners by the insurance industry. Know this personally, and first-hand with my own case. We inherited a home with an in-basement single-walled furnace oil tank of indeterminate age (no visible or diccernible stamp or tag anywhere). Our insurers were patient with us for about ten years and then put their foot down: no coverage for damage to aquifer or neighbour's wells or their soil, surface and sub-surface, unless you change out your tank for a modern approved version. And that I did...right quick.
I asked the tech doing the work for us and that is what he told us...anaerobic microbes will eat the metal from the inside of the tank. Modern tanks for furnace oil have a poly bladder or cannister inside of the thinner metal skin/cladding. Also, they have a wick running from the bottom of the outer tank up into a clear plastic bubble that will change colour if the poly cannister should ever leak.
Yeah and never put a biodiesel blend in a tank that has never had it in there either. Bossman learned that one the HARD way a couple years ago. He hedged his costs on fuel bought IIRC 1 million gallons of a 20 percent biodiesel blend at a great price. Well we battled fuel filter gumming for about 6 months from the bacterial bloom from our 20K gallon storage tanks we have here. The cause alage in the fuel that loved the biofuel. We ended up treating the tanks with massive amounts of fuel treatments to kill it. Yeah it was a fun few months for our shop.
Many years ago my wife had a Nissan Pulsar (small car) and one day she complained that every time she shifted into 5th gear (on the interstate) the engine died. Said she had to pull over to the side of the road, restart the engine and then it would run fine. She would pull back into traffic and when she shifted into 5th gear, the engine would die. She said it took her 5 or 6 times to get across town, the engine dying whenever she shifted into 5th gear.
I took the car out and drove all over the neighborhood and it worked fine, even if I managed to get it into 5th gear. So, I headed to the interstate and as soon as I got it up to highway speeds and shifted into 5th gear, the engine died. Pull over and it would restart; rev the engine many times, no problem; pull back into traffic and accelerate to get into 5th gear and the engine would die!
Screwy!
I got off the interstate and drove home on city streets... no problem.
I looked under the hood, but I am not a car mechanic, so I was not really sure what to even look for! I did, completely by accident!, happen look at the fuel filter on the firewall of the engine compartment. It was a small plastic cannister that was sort of transparent and normally one can vaguely see the brownish filter element in it, but I could see a layer of pink sediment in the bottom of the cannister and the filter was a bright pink, too.
I removed the cannister and poured out some of the gas that remained in it and it was full of pink flakes of something.
I went to a car parts place and bought a new filter and discussed the symptom with one the sales clerks... He said I would need a couple of spare filters until all the paint inside the fuel tank had been etched away by the "gasahol" that was all the rage then. He said he had been selling a lot of fuel filters of late!
Gasahol was new and my wife (being an environmentalist wannabe) had filled the tank with the, then new, alcohol blended gasoline and it had apparently reacted with the paint on the inside of the gas tank and caused it to flake off and clog the fuel filter.
The fuel filter was so clogged that at idle or low speed, it was allowing enough gasoline through to keep the engine running, but when accelerating to highway speeds, the engine would be starved of fuel since not enough could pass the filter. By the time you were ready to shift to 5th gear, it would die.
I drove all over the place that evening on the interstate and had no problem after I replaced the filter. A week later my wife complained that it did it again, so I replaced the filter again. A month later I replaced it one more time just because I felt like it, but it did not have much of any pink flakes in it.
Drove that car for about 10 years after that and never needed to replace the filter again and never had a problem with the tank, either... dunno why they painted the inside of the tank.
Semper Vaporo
Pkgs.
Semper Vaporo Many years ago my wife had a Nissan Pulsar (small car) and one day she complained that every time she shifted into 5th gear (on the interstate) the engine died. Said she had to pull over to the side of the road, restart the engine and then it would run fine. She would pull back into traffic and when she shifted into 5th gear, the engine would die. She said it took her 5 or 6 times to get across town, the engine dying whenever she shifted into 5th gear. I took the car out and drove all over the neighborhood and it worked fine, even if I managed to get it into 5th gear. So, I headed to the interstate and as soon as I got it up to highway speeds and shifted into 5th gear, the engine died. Pull over and it would restart; rev the engine many times, no problem; pull back into traffic and accelerate to get into 5th gear and the engine would die! Screwy! I got off the interstate and drove home on city streets... no problem. I looked under the hood, but I am not a car mechanic, so I was not really sure what to even look for! I did, completely by accident!, happen look at the fuel filter on the firewall of the engine compartment. It was a small plastic cannister that was sort of transparent and normally one can vaguely see the brownish filter element in it, but I could see a layer of pink sediment in the bottom of the cannister and the filter was a bright pink, too. I removed the cannister and poured out some of the gas that remained in it and it was full of pink flakes of something. I went to a car parts place and bought a new filter and discussed the symptom with one the sales clerks... He said I would need a couple of spare filters until all the paint inside the fuel tank had been etched away by the "gasahol" that was all the rage then. He said he had been selling a lot of fuel filters of late! Gasahol was new and my wife (being an environmentalist wannabe) had filled the tank with the, then new, alcohol blended gasoline and it had apparently reacted with the paint on the inside of the gas tank and caused it to flake off and clog the fuel filter. The fuel filter was so clogged that at idle or low speed, it was allowing enough gasoline through to keep the engine running, but when accelerating to highway speeds, the engine would be starved of fuel since not enough could pass the filter. By the time you were ready to shift to 5th gear, it would die. I drove all over the place that evening on the interstate and had no problem after I replaced the filter. A week later my wife complained that it did it again, so I replaced the filter again. A month later I replaced it one more time just because I felt like it, but it did not have much of any pink flakes in it. Drove that car for about 10 years after that and never needed to replace the filter again and never had a problem with the tank, either... dunno why they painted the inside of the tank.
They did not paint it. Gasoline would remove paint too. Prior to the plastic tanks currently in use tanks were made of Terne plate, a sheet steel coated with a mixture of zinc and lead to resist gasoline and water corrosion. The only paint that might resist the solvent action of gasoline long term is something like Imron ( polyurethane) oean epoxy designed to do so.
The pink color leads me to believe that it might have been an accumulation of the red dye found in most motor fuels in those days.
I don't know what the insides of the gas tanks were painted with, but I do remember that certain brands of cars were affected and others were not... assummed to be a difference in the lining of the tank used by different manufacturers. Some gas stations even had signs listing brands/models and model years of cars as not recommended to use gasahol. And it didn't matter what brand of gas was used; If it was an alcohol blend the tank could lose its liner and clog the fuel filter.
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