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#17
10-06-2018, 11:11 PM
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I made this post some years back on a similar thread:
When I bought my office building it had an old 1550 gallon fuel tank in the basement. I always assumed it was empty. One day I decided to have it removed so sent a worker down to open the access hole to see how much gunk was left in the tank. he came back and said it was full. Nearest I can figure was it had been setting there since the boiler had been converted to natural gas. Best guess was about 40 years. We took a sample off the bottom and found it was nice and clear though a bit dark in color. First I tried to get a fuel supplier to come pump it but they refused anything more than a year old. They suggested a hazardous material contractor. I thougtht fooey, that stuff is good. I installed a pump with an ordinary truck diesel fuel filter in line and pumped it into my 91 350sdl tank and drove away. No issues. (with my car). The rest of the story is that next day when I was coming into work I found the city Engineer, the city electrical inspector and a few other folks gathered around my little fuel pump. I walked up and asked what was up? It seems the building behind mine was a federal court guarded consciencously by Federal Marshals. Turned out I spilt a cup or so of fuel in the alley and they feared some sort of terrorist using my fuel to perpetrate a terrorist task and called the City Engineer. They asked me what the deal was with the fuel pump and I told them my story about the heating oil and how nobody wanted to take it away so I decided to run it in my diesel car and truck. So next day I got a letter from the City Engineer saying I had three days to get the pump and tank and 1550 gallons of fuel out of my building and out of the alley. Yikes! So I wrote a respectful letter requesting 45 days to do the job explaining the tank was so large it would have to be cut up and hauled out in pieces. I explained that that would be impossible to arrange in such a short time. So she gave me 30 days. So I sold the fuel to my buddy who had a excavation contracting company and he came and took all the fuel away except the sludge in the bottom and ran it in his heavy equipment. I think he gave me .50 on the dollar of the price at the pumps. I then hired a contractor from Indy who had an appropriate license to remove tanks and clean up sludge. He showed up with a serious air compressor run by a small block ford v8 engine which ran on one bank and used the other to make compressed air. They cut up the tank on a weekend and were gone by monday. Oh yes, the money from the sale of the fuel took care of most of the cost of the tank removal. Removing the tank from the building was how all this started so I got what I wanted there too. That is one of my favorite stories. Gentlemen when life gives you lemons try your best to make lemonade from them if you can! If there's no water in the fuel you won't live long enough for it to cause you trouble in storage. 
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[SIGPIC] Diesel loving autocrossing grandpa Architect. 08 Dodge 3/4 ton with Cummins & six speed; I have had about 35 benzes. I have a 39 Studebaker Coupe Express pickup in which I have had installed a 617 turbo and a five speed manual. [SIGPIC]..I also have a 427 Cobra replica with an aluminum chassis. 
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