"Colin Blackburn" wrote in message
news

Two questions. First can I effectively drain off the water which sits
under the diesel to the point where the fuel is usable?
Yes but still pump off the good diesel from an inch or two off the bottom.

As it is red diesel I can
now see a 50-50 mix coming through after a couple of bucketfuls of almost
"pure" water.
That mix will gradually settle out although there's still an emulsion type
layer which takes forever to disappear. That's why I suggested pumping the
good stuff at least a couple of inches off the bottom.

Second, one of the generators was running when this happened and thus
quickly stopped running! Do I need to do anything other than run pure
diesel through the engine or is it likely that further damage will have
occurred?
Any damage that could be done has been done. Provided you clean out all the
lines to and from the pump and injectors you should get away with it though.

I suggest you get at least a couple of decent in line filters for the
future, ideally ones with bowls so you can see the sediment and run them in
series. Maybe also consider an auto cutout so that if water's detected in
the filter it kills the engine. I've had red diesel straight from the
delivery truck with water in it. Once it gets in the system the big problem
is the fuel that bypasses the injectors and is fed back to the tank contains
water in fine droplets which take ages to settle out so they keep going
round and round the system til they kill the pump. I'd also make sure the
engine gets fuel from above the bottom of the tank and regularly drain the
unusable fuel at the bottom to check for water.

Rgds

Andy R