Ever fill up with diesel - of course not - but I did

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ST1300 Draining Fuel (after accidentally filling with diesel)


This can be done without removing the tank.


First you'll need to get a 20 litre jerry-can and fill it with petrol at your local filling station.


Remove the seat from your Pan. Under the seat you will see a small black rubber hose which goes to the upper tank (#6 in the picture, below). We are going to use this outlet to drain both the upper and lower tanks (by siphonic action).


Pinch the tabs of the hose clip together and slide the clip off the hose. Pull the hose off the nozzle. Fuel will start to flow from the nozzle if there is any in the upper tank. Rapidly replace the black hose with your (longer, tight fitting) hose that should run to a catch can of some sort. Don't forget, if the bike's tank is nearly full you may need to catch 29 litres of fuel.


Keep the end of the drain hose at least 10 cm below the bottom of the lower tank to ensure the siphonic action. Both tanks will be almost completely empty when the fuel stops flowing.


To get the bike going again:
Add 10 litres of clean petrol to the main tank and allow it to flush through the system. Collect it in a new catch can. Don't discard this petrol. It will contain a small amount of diesel but you can re-use it.


After the petrol flush has finished flowing, re-connect the original hose to the lower tank (don't forget to put the clip back on), add 10 litres of clean petrol to the main tank and attempt to start the bike. It may take quite a few attempts to get it going and there may be a lot of grey/black smoke when it does, eventually, run. Let the bike run for about 10 minutes. The amount of grey/black smoke should diminish.


Replace any bits you removed from the bike and put the seat back on. Ride the bike to your local petrol station and fill up with petrol. Once you have used 10 litres of this fuel (about 100 miles of riding) you can top up the tank again with the 10 litres of petrol you used earlier for flushing the pipes.


Don't worry if you are still getting some grey/black smoke out of your exhaust. This will all disappear after a few more fills of clean petrol.


Picture:
Pipe #6 is the one we use to drain the fuel. #1 and #4 have rubber pipes on them – do not remove these pipes. Don't touch #5 either. The seat adjuster has been removed in this photo. You can easily do this too if you need more room to work. (4 bolts to the frame, 1 bolt to the rear brake fluid reservoir and 1 long nut and bolt under the rear end of the main petrol tank – you may need to loosen/remove the two bolts at the top, front of the main tank to allow you to raise the rear of the tank and remove this long nut and bolt).
 

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John OoSTerhuis

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Hmmm... intereSTing. On the ST1100 you can just jumper the fuel pump to pump the tank out. BTDT Is that an option on an ST1300?

John [yeah, I know... I actually poSTed to an ST1300 thread... so sue me. :) ]
 
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I would not discard the initial draining of the tank - your fill up of diesel plus whatever petrol was in the gas tanks. Here in the USA it is getting harder and harder to dispose of contaminated gas (or diesel) and you now have about 7 gal of contaminated fuel. I'd probably put a quart - oops, sorry, litre or two of this mix into the gas tank of my car after the car was filled up, and just burn it up over a period of time. At a ratio of 30 to 1 or greater (depends on the capacity of your car's fuel tank) this gas/diesel mix won't harm anything. You might throw some seafoam into the bike's tank when you fill up with petrol to help clean things up.
 

Ron

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I pumped a gallon or so into my 1100 tank before I realized what I was doing. Topped it off with gas and ran the tank about half down. Topped off again by adding another 3-4 gallons. I was on the road at the time and didn't have too many real options.

I would take the can of mixed fuel to the gas station, dump it into my car tank and top off with gasoline.
 
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Ever have a Honda self propelled lawn mower that was very hard, if not impossible, to start. I had to make a longer choke rod on one of mine. Honda made some too short to close the choke butterfly completely.

Had a customer bring his Honda rototiller into the shop with a no start situation. Smelled the gas/diesel mix in the tank. Put fresh gas in after draining. He wondered how he got diesel in his gas can.
 
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Hmmm... intereSTing. On the ST1100 you can just jumper the fuel pump to pump the tank out. BTDT Is that an option on an ST1300?

John [yeah, I know... I actually poSTed to an ST1300 thread... so sue me. :) ]
I'm thinking you might be able to do something similar on the ST1300, just by disconnecting the high pressure fuel line (fuel pump output) so the FPR and injector rails would be out of the fuel system. Connect a drain hose going to an empty clean container, turn on the ignition and the engine stop switch to RUN and I think the fuel pump would continue to run until the headlights run the battery down or the ignition is switched off. A jumper to the fuel pump would be preferred since it would be the only load on the battery. Can't say for sure that this would work, but don't know why hot.
 
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Maybe you could read the post again - I reused the 'flushing run' in the bike.
I assume SMSW was referring to the diesel fuel initially drained from the tank. What did you do with that? His suggestion to eventually use it up by adding a little to the gas in his car until it is used up is probably a good idea.
 

Blrfl

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Almost happened to me once. Had the diesel nozzle in one hand and was wondering why nothing would start start after hitting the 93 button several times.

--Mark
 

Gerhard

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I have never filled up with diesel but I have put 2 stroke gas mixture in my 4 stroke lawn tractor because I wasn't ambitious enough to drive to town to get a can of gas :rolleyes:

Gerhard
 
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I wonder why the ST1300 doesn't have the narrowed down filler neck like most other bikes have so you can't do this?
 
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I wonder why the ST1300 doesn't have the narrowed down filler neck like most other bikes have so you can't do this?

Most diesel pump nozzles are the same size as gas nozzles unless you are at a truck stop or the "truck" pump island. If you had the big size diesel nozzle in hand and fueled the bike I think you deserve what you get. I drive diesel vehicles most of the time and can't imagine getting diesel into the motorcycle since I always fill carefully while on the centerstand right to the rim of the tank. Diesel and gas have a VERY different look/color, smell and diesel foams like crazy. Pay attention.
Too much diesel into the gas mix can be catastrophic for an engine. Diesel burns a lot hotter,and can result in melted/damaged Pistons, valves, etc. Seen it done.
On the other hand, it's a pretty common occurrence for diesel owners (or foolish ones borrowing their vehicles to non-diesel owners) to fill up with gasoline.
 
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ST Gui

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Who's doing that? I've never seen a bike with a small-diameter fuel filler.
Same here. And I can't think this is such a problem that a specialized tank filler neck is needed. I think in CA we got cars with narrow filler necks so we couldn't use leaded gas and kill cats. Are the green diesel fuel nozzles bigger than unleaded gas?
 
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Same here. And I can't think this is such a problem that a specialized tank filler neck is needed. I think in CA we got cars with narrow filler necks so we couldn't use leaded gas and kill cats. Are the green diesel fuel nozzles bigger than unleaded gas?
Fixed that for ya. BTW, I think that was a 50-state requirement for manufacturers to equip cars and light trucks that required unleaded gas to build them with smaller filler necks. Note that there is also nothing to prevent one from filling the tank with E85. I personally think that new vehicles should be made with fuel system components that are E85 compatible (excluding the ECU and related components needed for E85), just to minimize or eliminate ethanol related issues, even if the vehicles are only certified for E10 or E15 gas.
 
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On the other hand, it's a pretty common occurrence for diesel owners (or foolish ones borrowing their vehicles to non-diesel owners) to fill up with gasoline.
I've never added diesel to the ST but I have added gas to my diesel pickup. Luckily, I realized the error of my ways when the smog thingie clicked off the pump. I was "what the heck is it doing that for? DOH!!!! I ended up buying a fuel pump and four 5 gallon jerry cans from the auto parts place across the street. I jumped the fuel pump to my battery, attached the pump to my fuel filter inlet line, and pumped out 20 gallons of gas/diesel mix (I didn't fill it all the way up thankfully).

I think it was Sinclair gas stations that used to have diesel fuel lines that were black and green as gasoline.
 
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