Anyone fitted an electric fuel pump?

[Maffi]

On 13/06/2019 at 19:36, hider said:

 

Not really, you see we are both on line, me and my DAD! Just using his log in because again he has had an attempt by the phantom password breaker. Getting really fed up with this person. They seem to be able to use any address when they attempt to log in. 

 

WOW! that was a quality side step Sam! 

[TNLI]

13 minutes ago, Tony Brooks said:

Me too until despite using Fuelset and draining own each winter I pulled about 12 litres of emulsified gunge out of mine. It settled to about 8 litres of fairly clean water, the rest went for bonfire starting.

 

12 litres, mine Gott, you must be doing something rather odd, or your fuel tank system has not been designed, or installed correctly. 

 

Firstly, try to avoid having to use alloy or stainless for smallish non commercial use fuel tanks. That might not be possible in some power boats, but it should be possible for most canal boats. Vetus make a good range of plastic fuel and water tanks, that have never let me done, and the difference in temperature changes or differentials between the tank air gap temp and the OAT, is far less, so that results in less condensation.

 

Secondly, make sure the fuel cap seal and vent location is not letting in rain water. Also make sure that the bottom of the tank does not have a tiny hole or two, that lets in bilge water.

 

Thirdly, pre-filter the fuel with a real good filter funnel, or if you are taking on fuel from a potential dodgy dealer, don't put it in the tank, only in plastic cans. That way the water and crud will finish up on the bottom of the can.

 

Finally, try to avoid using any Biocide, unless it's a real top of the range product made by Liqui Moly, or supplied by a main dealer, and its worth remembering that the folks selling red diesel are far less fussy than your average garage is about fuel quality.

 

One tea cup full of crud per year only!

[TNLI]

Quick fuel system rant:

 

Thinking back to my rather too many years sailing and fishing around the world, here is a list of the top main reasons why an owner or operator of a diesel powered boat ran into big time diesel bug problems;

 

1/ Poor fuel quality, in fact one case involved a corrupt employee of a local fuel service selling what turned out to be mostly sea water from a nice new drum of BP marine diesel fuel from his small fuel barge. It resulted in a series of boats suffering engine failures, so I never put diesel fuel directly into a fuel tank, although if I'm skippering a big boat, I visit the fuel dock or supply boat and buy a sample first, test it for water by letting the glass jar it is in sit for a few days, or use a test strip that reacts with water by turning bright red.

   So, USE A FUEL FILTER FUNNEL THAT STOPS WATER, like wot some real good companies like West Marine sell. Practical Boat Owner did test some, so read that article before buying one.

 

2/ Direct fuel tank leaks. These come in several different forms, with a failed fuel cap seal probably top of the list, a corroded fuel tank, (Normally the bottom plate), that has tiny holes in it that let the bilge water in. a close second, and an incorrectly installed or defective tank vent system that allows rain water in last. 

 

3/ Poor fuel tank design. A fuel tank that has no inspection plate or other method of direct access to the bottom of the tank, is always going to finish up turning into a diesel bug farm, that in some cases they seem to be designed to grow diesel bug as efficiently as possible. They often have fuel filler caps that are under water in heavy rain, vents that don't work, and an alloy tank design that results in serious electrolysis of the bottom plate! 

 

4/ Annual tank cleaning: Mostly resulting from a failure to understand that no matter how good your pre filtering and tank system is at preventing the dreaded orrible slimy bugs turning the bottom of the tank and turning it into a sludge factory, you will need to clean the tank some time, often once a year. Unless you have a good built in fuel polishing system.

 

5/ Failure to install or use the fuel polishing system correctly, (Tends to be more of a big boat issue). These systems are required when correct cleaning of the tank is impossible.

  I did install a polishing system in a small fishing boat many moons ago, and it just consisted of a small stainless thru hull fitting for the top of the alloy fuel tank that I used to place a length of fuel hose into the tank in such a way as it was resting on the lowest part, (Several hours fiddling around to find out where that was), that then was routed to a small shut off valve just to the side of the tank and a cheap and nasty CAV 296 glass bowl unit that found in a rubbish dump, (The glass was cracked but I had a spare in my bin). The fuel filter had a cheapish inline hand pump that could be used to prime it, and was fed to a 12v fuel pump. The output was connected to fuel return line hose from the injectors. The owner operator ran that polishing unit for a few hours every Sunday morning

 

6/ CAV 296 FUEL FILTER. The real sinner is the glass free units used as primary fuel filters, as they give the operator no warning that they have a water contamination issue. If you do have one for a primary filter, ask Santa for a RACOR 500 FG and a few coarse filters, preferable genuine ones. The 2 Racor 500 copies I have, (One for each tank), are mounted in the main cabin and clearly visible to anyone in that cabin, along with the emergency fuel shut off and selector valve which is right next to the filter. The ASAP 12v electric fuel feed pumps will be near those units, (WIP), with an obvious illuminated switch next to the shut off valve, and a little bleeper, as the priming pump is just used to fill the filters and to help bleed the system when required. If that is not required it should be off, hence the light and warning bleeper. 

  If you have a CAV 296 fuel filter on your beloved BMC donkey, sell it and replace it with the ASAP or other conversion kit that allows you to use spin on filters, (Mann or Bosch fine ones are best). Make sure the Mann fuel filters are genuine, not just black cans stiffed with paper that don't even have a pressure relief valve, (If it's an oil filter).

 

You might think my small lifeboat fuel system is rather OTT, BUT it's a lot less expensive than some kind of annual fuel tank foul up issue, and/or engine failure related towing fees that many diesel bug afflicted boaters are so keen on. Some like using diesel bug related residue to trash their HP fuel pump seals. I even managed to fully seize up a Yanmar HP pump and blow out 2 injector tips by failing to discover a real McCoy Racor 500 had the wrong size element in it. When I checked the tiny secondary fuel filter, it was almost solid brown slime. The Yanmar lift pump was so good it managed to suck enough slime through to do real expensive job by trashing the entire fuel injection system. A correctly designed fuel system normally fails in a way that the RPM starts to wonder around as a kind of warning that the fuel filter or filters are starting to block up.

Alas as Dell Boy would say, "It was a nice little earner", for the Yanmar parts department. 

 

Edited November 18, 2021 by TNLI