Sebco News - November 2010

Welcome to the first edition of Sebco News.It is our aim to keep ourcustomers informed of what is happening in our industryand in particular within our business. I hope you enjoy it. Cheers Ed Harrison

The Risk of Bad Diesel.

Dirty diesel has been the talk of many farmers lately, especially at shows we have been at. But more to the point it is the old dirty storage tanks being used that have caused most of the issues. Ask anyone in the diesel repair industry. We have seen a marked increase over the last 12 months of failures of injectors and fuel pumps in tractors and machinery due to the onset of common rail engines. This is not attributed to one brand of manufacturer but across the board where the tolerances are now so fine that even a tiny amount of water in the system can do huge damage.

I was recently speaking with a Service Manager from a tractor dealership, he showed me a common rail injector pump that had failed. The tractor was under a year old, had less than 1000 hrs on the clock and had stopped during a busy part of the season due to fuel contamination. The repair bill was just under $20,000. What I found really concerning that to the visual eye you could see no real damage! Sure enough the pump was buggered.

Many operators don’t realise the implications of fuel contamination. Grandad’s or Dad’s old Nuffield, Fordson Major or MF 65 used to run fine with fuel from the old 500 gal overhead tank, however that was 40 or 50 years ago. The tractors/sprayer/combine/ute/SUV that are all used on the farm today are expected to fill from that same tank, most  have hardly ever been cleaned out and are littered with unseen water contamination and rust on the inside.

The problem is quite easily avoided by updating fuel storage tanks to the Sebco Bunded Diesel Stations, and I can only wonder when people spend many hundreds of thousands of dollars on new plant for the farm that they do not look at the overall benefit of spending a bit more by comparison for the longevity of their fleet.

Maybe it’s the risk taking nature of kiwis!

Below: Diesel bug from an overhead tank

Above: Clogged filters due to diesel bug

Sebco at the 148^th Canterbury A&P Show

This year for the annual show we decided the focus for us would be on contaminated fuel. As I have said in the article on reverse, this issue is causing a real headache for operators, machinery service departments, fuel supply companies and the like. We felt not many owners had seen the damage caused so with the help of three service departments we set up a display including a rotary injector pump from an old style tractor, a common rail injector pump, contaminated fuel with diesel bug showing what it does to filters and some tips and nozzles from a cross section of vehicles all under a microscope display. All these units we showed had failed due to water ingress into the pumps. Most people who viewed our display could not believe how little contamination could cause such damage, and how small the tolerances are before such damage can stop a vehicle!

All show visitors agreed that simple features of the Sebco Diesel Stations which virtually eliminate condensation due to their insulation properties, will never rot or rust even in the most demanding conditions, were are great product to have on any farm. Sales and enquiries were excellent with a lot of operators to follow up after pondering their own  diesel storage facilities.