Dirty fuel watery fuel. What now?

[Dandydan]

So I have Finale gotten to what I believe is the root of the problem. Problem is 1994, 302 Ford, attached to a VP 290 DP, runs well up to about 3000-3500 RPM, then after a minute or two begins to sputter, miss, backfire, and then if the throttle is not pulled back, she dies. This started this spring during test runs. Went to great effort to resolve the problem in this not even broke in engine. Has a new distributor, carborator, coil, compression check, plugs, wires, all in a long block just 20 hours old. The fuel filter was installed at the time of the engine install. So my neighbor comes over and says dirty fuel. So, tonight I pulled the fuel filter and sure enough it was about 1 part dirty water to 5-6 parts gas. The filter did the job, new one is installed, and should be ready for new test drive. Question: do I need to get all the old gas out of the tank and some how siphon all the water and gunk out, or do I just keep a new filter on board and change out if it starts starving for fuel again? Does HEET work to remove water? What the heck am I going to do with 20 gallons of dirty gas. How do you get the tank completely clean. Should I find a place to add an auxiliary filter like VP now suggests? Thanks for your help. It is not the first time!

 

[Augoose]

How dirty do you think the tank is and how old is the gas?

You can purchase an drill powered, electric or mechanical inline pump and about 20 feet of 1" hose. Run one end of the hose into the tank through an access hatch or use slightly smaller hose and run it down the filler hose. Ensure the pump is in the middle of the line and protected from spark, arc, etc. Pick up a couple of cheap gas cans and start pumping. Try running the gas in the lawn mower if it isn't too bad. Or you should be able to take the gas to a place which recycles used oil.

Or keep running though the bad gas and try to filter it out. i would avoid running it if were real bad gas though.

I wouldn't waste money on HEET.

 

[Scott Danforth]

What the heck am I going to do with 20 gallons of dirty gas. How do you get the tank completely clean.

bonfire to get rid of the bad gas

you pull the sender, you fill tank with cleaner, you drive down bumpy road, you repeat until tank is clean.

 

[Grub54891]

Would help a lot if you found the source of the water getting in there. If your running ethanol, switch over to mom ethanol.

 

[Dandydan]

Thanks those are all good suggestions. I think i will pull the sender unit and look inside. I will add to post what I find. Hopefully there won’t be any sparks with all that “screwing” around.

 

[dingbat]

Water isn't dirty....

New filter, fill tank with gas and go boating.

No better tank cleaner than a tank full of E-10.