On Sun, 22 Jul 2007 14:58:33 -0400, Wayne.B
wrote:

On Fri, 20 Jul 2007 13:00:44 -0400, "Roger Long"
wrote:

I just went down to the money black hole to see about adding a second filter
to go in parallel and neither store in town has one like this. All small
primary filters now seem to be the spin on type as opposed to this one that
you drop a paper element into.

Would this be a good time to switch to a spin-on filter? It looks looks
like it would be a lot easier to get at the sediment bowl to clean it out in
event of major fuel contamination. I can barely reach my filter so making
filter changes as easy as possible is important, one reason I'm thinking of
a second filter I can switch over to.

Roger I've been anchored for a few days in places with no internet
service but it looks like you've gotten most of the information you
need. Parallel, hot switchable filters are nice to have if you are
making long passages under power, if your system is difficult to prime
and bleed, or if you have a history of tank gunk and filter clogging.
Sounds like you've got that covered however. The people who most need
elaborate filtration gear are we trawler folks who have large fuel
tanks holding many hundreds of gallons. When the boat sits idle for
any period of time the tanks become a breeding ground for biology
experiments.

One thing I did add to my sailboat fuel system is a water trap. All
the diesel pickups here in Thailand have them fitted as original
equipment. They are a plastic spin on filter shaped devise with a
float in it.They have a petcock and priming pump for draining out the
water. The float won't float in diesel and will float in water. They
have an electrical connection that can be connected to a warning horn
so when you get, say, a couple of tablespoons of water in the water
trap the horn blows. Put it on the tank side of your primary filter.




Bruce in Bangkok
(brucepaigeatgmaildotcom)

--
Posted via a free Usenet account from http://www.teranews.com

"Bruce" wrote

One thing I did add to my sailboat fuel system is a water trap.

I suspect that device is vital in your climate and fuel supply chain. After
two years of paying no attention to fuel or filters, I found not a drop of
water in the sediment bowl of my water separating filter.

I think Wayne is right, for my small diesel, operating in New England, I'm
covered. I'll probably add a parallel filter when I start going to
Newfoundland because that trip will involve a lot of motoring close along
the cliffs to take pictures.

I learned that the PO was running 2 micron filters in the primary and I'm
going to continue that. I can see changing the primary underway in
emergency conditons but I would not want to tackle the secondary in my
installation. The primary is rated for 15 GPH and my engine needs less than
1 so it would take a lot of filter degradation to shut me down. My primary
was loaded black and the secondary looked like it was put in yesterday when
I opened the system up.

I've never seen anything like that water trap here. Has anyone else?

--
Roger Long

The racors will trap water and allow you to drain it as well. You can
also fit one with an alarm sensor. If you haven't been having problems
with water, i'd just stick with one of those. Look at the cost of the
replacement elements to decide between a spin-on and a cartridge. I
have both in my fuel stream. Racor 900's as primaries, and I replaced
that dual CAV cartridge setup on the engine with a Racor spin-on. The
cartridges are much cheaper and easier to replace. The spin on
requires draining then removal, then a special wrench that grabs the
plastic bottom bowl along with a filter wrench to separate it from the
spin-on element. Harder to change and more expensive, but I only
change it once a year, since pretty much nothing ever makes it past
the Racor primary (2 micron cartridges).

I agree. Now that I've changed the filter on that obsolete Racor, I can see
that it is much easier to replace than a spin on. I would like to be able
to wipe the alge film out of the sediment bowl but it isn't really hurting
anything and I can disassemble the filter after fall layup. I'm going to
stick with my current filter as long as the elements are available.

--
Roger Long

Roger Long wrote:
I agree. Now that I've changed the filter on that obsolete Racor, I can
see that it is much easier to replace than a spin on. I would like to
be able to wipe the alge film out of the sediment bowl but it isn't
really hurting anything and I can disassemble the filter after fall
layup. I'm going to stick with my current filter as long as the
elements are available.


It's a Racor 200 FG (same as my boat). Obsolete so the filter
elements are bit more costly than the 500 MA/FG. The filter elements
on it are TINY though.

I'm going to upgrade to a Racor 500 because the bigger filter elements
are nicer and more likely to be in stock in out of the way places.

Evan Gatehouse

On Sat, 28 Jul 2007 07:56:40 GMT, Evan Gatehouse
wrote:

I'm going to upgrade to a Racor 500 because the bigger filter elements
are nicer and more likely to be in stock in out of the way places.

I have a few slightly used 500s laying around back home if you're
interested, also some new filter elements. I'm out on the boat for
the summer however so I can't get to them for a while. Be sure to use
the required element spacer with 500s, otherwise they will pass some
gunk downstream.