Air in fuel line

[CdS2 Roland]

Good morning,
I think 2 micron is way too much. Try, like I did, 20 micron. No more problem.

[GordMay]

Greetings and welcome aboard the CF, Yankee.

[Michael Cobbe]

To fiind the leaks put kitchen roll on tne fuel lift pump,all joints and the fuel fllter/s run the enginee and you wll find the leaks.

[Calcruiser]

Well I replaced the racor with a 30 micron. The bowl threads were spinning in the old filter so it took a little convincing and holes to get the old filter off.

The bowl looked clean before I took it out, but not once I drained the fuel out.

I’m guessing this is algae, so I’ll have to do a whole lot of research on that, but it would explain why my pump was struggling against a few clogged filters.

I’ll didn’t get to replacing the fuel pump today yet, but now I have a whole contaminated tank issue.

My fuel tank is a Tempo TP18T. Maybe I’ll just replace it.

Thanks for all the help!

[lonesoldier0408]

Originally Posted by Calcruiser

Well I replaced the racor with a 30 micron. The bowl threads were spinning in the old filter so it took a little convincing and holes to get the old filter off.

The bowl looked clean before I took it out, but not once I drained the fuel out.

I’m guessing this is algae, so I’ll have to do a whole lot of research on that, but it would explain why my pump was struggling against a few clogged filters.

I’ll didn’t get to replacing the fuel pump today yet, but now I have a whole contaminated tank issue.

My fuel tank is a Tempo TP18T. Maybe I’ll just replace it.

Thanks for all the help!

May try dual fuel filter treatment. Attach pump to two filters, circulate fuel from tank bottom through filters and back into tank. The churning actions makes debris become suspension material, which is captured by multiple filtration passes.

[Calcruiser]

Just to follow up. I replace the primary and the racor - the latter with a 30 micron instead of the 2 micron. Then I replaced the fuel pump with a fasco.

HOLY SMOKES so much fuel came out the bleed screw it shot out. In retrospect had a MAJOR clog in the filters and probably the 72 micron fuel pump filter as well as well as a possible fuel pump partial failure. This would have been super obvious when I was doing my bleeding before, but I have never seen what the flowrate was supposed to look like.

I also saw bubble come out of the bleed screw fuel like a soda can, so I now know what an air leak looks like - I did NOT have one. I think bleeding helped initially because it let the pump catch up somewhat against the clogged filters for the engine to start - at which point maybe the engine vacuum took over and made it work better? I think the next problem that would have happened would have been while underway the engine would stop. What really threw me off was the old owner, an Alaskan fisherman saying that "the fuel system is clean" and telling me to look elsewhere for the problem.

I put a vacuum gauge on the engine side of the racor and will monitor that. It reads 0hg when the engine is idling running now. The fittings on the racor have black sediment on them, and I'm 100% sure I have deposits in my tank and pickup tube. However, I cannot get the tank nor the pickup tube out (under the cabin sole) without removing the engine. Given that there is only 600 hours on this 19y/o engine and tank (or 30 filll-ups) I assume that the deposits aren't that bad, maybe 1/32" (after rubbing a stick on the bottom of the tank and looking at it).

I dropped in some biocide and plan to replace my racor filter frequently. Were I to head to tahiti, I would take a different approach and get a polishing system built in, a new tank, etc, but as it is now, it's mostly a day cruiser.

Thanks again for the help.

[Cat36Mahalo]

Glad its working for you !! But unless you really like the smell of diesel look at this upgrade to replace the bleed screw with a valve to return the diesel back to the tank rather than all over the engine. I personally have done this mod to my M25 -- what a difference!

https://catalina30.com/TechLib/Engin...%20upgrade.pdf

[mroc]

I had a super reliable engine Westerbeke 30B until I decided to go by the book and replaced both fuel filters.
After replacing them the engine ran first hesitant but later fine for say 20 minutes. Happily I changed oil as it heated up and can’t start it since. After 20 minutes all air should have been expelled, so now I suspect my lift pump but what a coincidence. It’s not making any noise when ignition is on, so I’m suspicious.
Any suggestions?

[mroc]

Update. My suspicion related to the lift pump was correct. It didn’t make any noise once connected so obviously didn’t pump any fuel. The multi meter showed 35V when ignition key was on!!!!????
But when I connected 12V from other ignition key controlled source, all was fine.
So the fuel system does bleed itself, but the effort wrecked the pump power source somehow.
Where the 35V at the original source came from, bits me, but I have better things to do than investigate.