Skip Gundlach wrote:
Moving this to a new place as Roger's have clogged (pardon the
expression) up pretty quickly each time.

I don't run the polisher - ever - at the dock. I want it to get the
junk, not just circulate fuel. Besides, if you don't have a
particularly clever design, you'll not be stirring up the tank in
other than a very small area.


Good design is important for a real fuel polisher; however it's also
possible to overly doctrinaire and reject very practical and workable
solutions that help quite a lot.

Instead, I tend to use it mostly when sailing, and any time the sea
state is particularly washing-machine-ish, the better to dislodge all
the old junk on the walls.


Our fuel pump/filter system is not a true polisher, the pump capacity
isn't high enough to set up a scouring current in the tank. However it
has a number of plusses, such as being connected at an otherwise-
unused bottom connection to the tank, and a very effective filter-
seperator on the suction side of the pump.

When first installed, I ran our recirc/filter pump after an afternoon
on choppy waters and saw a large amount of gunk filtered out.... in
fact the differential pressure across the filter got high enough to
stall the pump. I changed the filter element and ran the pump for
another couple of hours and it put a load of gunk the next filter
element too.

Then came a period where we were underway for almost a year, burning
fuel from many different sources, often running on rough water
(stirring up the tank again). The fuel filters elements were changed
about 3 times during that period, and they never showed as high DP nor
as much accumulated gunk. We never had the slightest bit of fuel-
related trouble.

So- a system which is not "the MOST effective" design can still be
very effective.

Of course, not long after installation, I had this wreck which allowed
for about 36 hours of pounding, and, then, on the trip home, due to
only a spinnaker and staysail surviving, a very rolly (about 40* back
and forth) period, I *think* I have most of the crud of nearly 30
years, not to mention the over 3 years of static fuel while we
refitted, cleaned up.


That's good.

Certainly, after the first two changes of the wound filters (20 and 10
micron in series), the first of which was truly awful and the second
of which was merely nasty, my vac has not changed at all in the entire
trip this time (from July 11, over 800 engine hours and about 3000
miles).


About due to change the filter elements again?

Fresh Breezes- Doug King