On today's episode of This is Science: Hotshot EDT Diesel treatment

[Smucky]

Trying to figure out how the tanks in the tractor got so rusty. This is the bottom of the tank after I got a siphon going with a water hose and then sorta "vacuumed" the bottom while the siphon was going. Did that several times actually.. (and yes that is a plastic fuel nozzle at the bottom )

There's always been a rust problem, but seems since it sat for a year it has really exploded. Maybe it is perhaps because it has been mostly empty. But I had been, at least for the last few years, believing in the folklore of adding 2 stroke oil increases lubrication to the injection pump. I was starting to wonder if perhaps there were extra additives in the 2 stroke oil that might be making it absorb water or something. Did some chatting with my AI girlfriend. She said it was possible, since some 2 stroke oil standards also apply to water craft and will have emulsifiers in them.

Curiosity got the best of me so I grabbed about a pint of diesel out of the old tractor and put it into a glass jar in the kitchen. The fuel was probably 18+ months old and had been treated with 2 stroke oil at the rate of 1/2 an oz per gallon or so. Threw one spoon of water in it which quickly sank into a single blob at the bottom of the jar. Gave it a good shaking with the lid on, the water turned into a white cloud at the bottom of the jar. On closer look, it wasn't a "cloud" but just a layer of millions of tiny mico-droplets of water. After a few minutes, the "cloud" remained, the water refused to return to its original "blob" form.

AI girlfriend said this could be due to a number of reasons. One being that the fuel could be contaminated with rust or bio-material and these particles would contaminate the molecular membrane surrounding each droplet and thus forcing each droplet to stay in a permanent droplet form. Either that, OR it could be there is a mild emulsifier present. AI girlfriend recommended I do the test again using fresh diesel from the pump. But at $5.50 a gallon, I ain't making that trip.

AI girlfriend also suggested I stop pouring 2 stroke oil in the diesel since if you do the math, it costs about the same as actual diesel treatment and those will have more enhancements instead of lubricity only.

And that lead down several days of "researching" diesel additives. I almost gave up and stuck with the 2 stroke oil, since I really didn't want to be messing with this. But one thing I was curious about was most diesel treatments advertised "de-emulsification", or separating water from fuel. Ended up settling on the hot shot everyday treatment. Another semi-decent one was archoil but it costs way more and pretty much only available online. The hot shot stuff I can get at several stores around here for $20 to treat 400 gallons. Doing the math, that is just 1-2ml per gallon. Not much...

I was curious what, if anything, it would do to the already watered solution I still had sitting on my kitchen counter. It had been sitting for a few days now, and had regrouped into bigger droplets but still had a ways to go:

I assume that is about a pint. Doing the math leads to .130ml of treatment solution. Wasn't sure how to measure that, I still have a bunch of the 3ml dropper things. But they only measure in .5ml increments. But thinking about it, not hard to go half way between .5ml to get to .25. And half of that is .125 which is close enough to .130. So half of a half of a half. Also the bottle said you could double the amount "if needed" so that puts me back at the easier to measure .250ml anyway so went with that.

Slowly dripped in a few drops. Not many drops in .25ml... Put the lid on and gave a quick shake. Set the mixture back on the counter while I washed my hands because of course I managed to still get gas and treatment all over me. But before I was done washing my hands, I could already see a change:

I was honestly impressed. I was expecting nothing. Not quite sure what this means for the rusty tank in the old tractor. More than likely the excessive rust is due to it sitting in a damp barn for 18 months with only a couple of gallons of fuel in it. But nonetheless, I'll be running this hot shot stuff from now on I suppose.