J/30 Class Association Forums J/30 Forum The Boat, Sails and Equipment Cleaning / Polishing Contaminated Diesel Fuel

This past summer, Rhapsody started having intermittent problems with fuel starvation. Initial troubleshooting found the o-ring around the plastic bowl on the bottom of the Racor fuel filter was stretched. So, I replaced the Racor filter element (2 micron R24S) that comes with a new o-ring. Everything worked fine for about a month. Just before the boat was hauled for the season, the same thing happened. It looks like the R24S filter is getting plugged, and when I used the manual priming pump, it pushed the gasket out more and leaked fuel. Although I use diesel fuel additive for water absorption and anti-algae, I suspect my fuel tank has sediment and crud that is plugging the Racor. Here's a link I've read that has a good description of marine diesel fuel issues: http://www.boatus.com/boattech/casey/33.htm
I want to "polish" the fuel in the tank by recirculating it, but the professional fuel polishing rigs cost big time. I was wondering if anybody has had experience with this, or do they know if anyone in the RI area rents fuel polishing rigs.

I'm considering developing a way to "polish" the fuel by recirculating it through filters at a reasonable cost. What I am looking at is building a rig that would have 30 micron filter followed by a 10 micron Racor filter, both with water separator bowls. A small electric fuel pump (2gpm rating) would draw a suction on the 10 Micron Racor Filter. The rig would take a suction on the fuel tank by disconnecting the fuel feed line at the inlet to the existing Racor R24S filter and connect that to the 30 Micron filter inlet. The discharge of the electric fuel pump would connect to the fuel return line that is normally connected by the Yanmar injectors. Thus a closed loop recirculation system is created between the fuel tank and the filtration rig.

Has anybody tried something like this, or have any recommendations?

Thanks,
Bill - Rhapsody #348


[This message has been edited by whk (edited 10-28-2006).]

My fuel tank has an inspection cover in it - if yours does why don't you just open thwe tank, drain all the fuel out with a hand pump and throw it away and then clean out the tank and put new fuel in.

Bill-

The 2 micron is too fine at that stage of your filtration. You should use the 10 micron at the racor and 2 micron at the primary filter.

David

[This message has been edited by dbows (edited 11-01-2006).]

I'll check for the cover next time I look at the tank.

David - Thanks for the info on the 2 Micron filter. It has worked for years amd it's only recently that the problem occurred, so I do suspect I've got real contamination. With clean fuel it is a non-problem. You are probably right on it being too fine for the primary filter though if there is any contamination. I'll look at switching to 10 micron on the primary and keep 2 micron on the Yanmar once I confirm I've got the fuel cleaned up.

Bill

Consider disposing the diesel in your home heating oil tank.

Nice thought, but I heat with Gas. There's probably someone around who would like an extra 10 gallons or so of fuel to heat with.