Bleeding the fuel filter of my Beta 38 engine

[jetzi]

2 minutes ago, ditchcrawler said:

I thought you tried to fit the Beta filter to it but it wouldnt fit

Yeah, I removed the orange FRAM filter and found it quite difficult to wiggle out. I believe I have a non-standard alternator that made it tricky.

But I couldn't get the new Beta filter on. For one thing there was an engine part directly under it, a dome shaped part about an inch in diameter that I think may be the "fuel lift pump" going on the BV1505 manual. This part was too close to the filter to mount on.

I then disconnected the bracket that holds the fuel filter and bent the fuel pipes slightly so I had space to get it on. But then, the thread didn't seem to line up. I slightly forced it and took a look and I saw a slight burr of metal in the thread, so I was chomping it a bit. I cleared the burr and tried again, same thing. So I don't think it was just a thread misalignment. The old filter on the other hand spun on no problem, so I'm just going to order the exact same filter, although I wanted to use genuine Beta parts, even so far as to buy "genuine Beta engine oil" for my oil change, which was - I'm sure - both unnecessary and extravagant but hey.

 

I think I may have bought a fuel filter for a different year model or something? I have no idea what year my engine is, nor can I find a serial number. There is a plaque mounted on top of it but any writing has long since worn away.

[Keeping Up]

There are two distinctly different sizes of Beta fuel filter. One for the (older) engines that do not have a big black button on top of the filter bracket, and a different size one for the newer ones that do have the big black button (which is a manual pump for bleeding the filter). The two sizes are NOT interchangeable.

 

ETA Yours appears to be the one which does NOT have the big black button

Edited August 25, 2019 by Keeping Up

[jetzi]

2 minutes ago, Keeping Up said:

There are two distinctly different sizes of Beta fuel filter. One for the (older) engines that do not have a big black button on top of the filter bracket, and a different size one for the newer ones that do have the big black button (which is a manual pump for bleeding the filter). The two sizes are NOT interchangeable.

 

ETA Yours appears to be the one which does NOT have the big black button

What you say makes sense and I think this is what I have done. I'll go back to the chandlery and see if they have the other type.

 

I have read through Tony's article and I have a much clearer understanding.

 

Where he says

"Find the lift pump on your boat and then follow the pipe to the injector pump - the thing with injector pipes fitted to it."

"Pump the priming lever on the lift pump or priming pump"

I'm not so sure. I don't recall seeing either of these things. But I will look more closely tomorrow morning in the clear light of day.

[Tony Brooks]

I think your beta is "self bleeding" and does not have the "button type" priming system on the filter. You may or may not have a priming lever on the lift pump. Self bleeding in this instance means self bleeding as long as the start battery is very well charged and in good condition.

 

If you do have a lever on the lift pump loosen the silver hexagon on top of the filter and prime until no more air and just pure fuel comes out.  Thee find the bled point on the injector pump but it might have a return to the rank pipe on it. Loosen that an repeat the above but this time ion the injector pump.

 

Now loosen all four main  injector pipe unions on the injector a turn or so. Crank on the starter until each pipe union dribbles or spits fuel. Tighten and it should run.

 

IF you have no  priming lever and no priming button/pump then all you can do is as above but spin it on the starter in 30 seconds on and 30 seconds rest bursts.

 

 

[Tony Brooks]

10 hours ago, ivan&alice said:

Why do diesel engines have return pipes? Why can't they just take as much fuel as they need? I presume that's how petrol engines work?

 

Because our type of injectors always leak a little fuel past the bits inside and on your engine (being so called self bleeding" it deliberately allows a proportion of fuel to flow out of the top of the engine filter and/or injector pump so it carries any air back to the top of the tank.

 

On things like BMC 1.x engine the leak off from the filter is via a 0.5mm drilling in a banjo bolt. This is not enough to self bleed and its in the wrong place for that but it does prevent a build up of air in the top of the filter that would eventually get into the injector pump and stop the engine.

10 hours ago, Jen-in-Wellies said:

Many petrol engines are similar and will spill any unused petrol back to the tank through a return pipe. Don't know the reason for diesel engines being like that, but on petrol it can stop the fuel overheating and vaporising in the pipe and leading to vapour lock and no flow at all. Petrol is much more volatile than diesel though. There are exceptions on some petrol engines.

That should have starter with "nowadays" because with carburettors the fuel pump free-wheeled when the carburettor was full of fuel, just like the majority of the BMC diesel lift pumps will. Spot on about vaporisation and indeed vapour locks were more common on the carburettor engines. To susch an extent the fuel pumps were often fitted with a thermal insulator between pump and engine.

[Tony Brooks]

10 hours ago, cuthound said:

 

A diesel engine modulates its power by varying the quantity of fuel injected and this is done by “spilling” off the excess from the pistons in the pump. This fuel is piped back to the tank. 

The way that is written is olloks. First the inline injection pumps like the Beta ones do not use pistons, they use plunges or elements and I suppose they do "spill" any fuel that is not needed out of the element assembly but it just goes back into the injector pump body. If, like the older "non-self bleeding" engines with inline pumps, the lift pump tries to deliver more fuel  it won't succeed and thus it will just free wheel this should also happen on the modern systems but much less because more "bleed" fuel is returned to the tank. Distributor type pump like the DPAs  use a metering valve to restrict the fuel entering the pumping chamber so nothing is spilled.

[jetzi]

Tony! You are the eponymous Tony from the website?! It all makes so much more sense now. Thank you so much for all the fantastic information.

So, it looks like I do have a lever on the lift pump. Just in case I'm pressing the self destruct button on my boat, can anyone confirm?

 

 

So I will begin by loosening the nut on top of the filter and pumping this lever.

 

I could use a hand identifying the other parts.

 

Once the fuel comes out, I need to find the injection pump and bleed that. I'm struggling to identify this a bit. I think it is the bit with the green arrow?

Then the bleed nuts on the injector valves themselves. Are these the nuts with the red arrows?

 

[Tony Brooks]

17 minutes ago, ivan&alice said:

Tony! You are the eponymous Tony from the website?! It all makes so much more sense now. Thank you so much for all the fantastic information.

So, it looks like I do have a lever on the lift pump. Just in case I'm pressing the self destruct button on my boat, can anyone confirm?

 

 

So I will begin by loosening the nut on top of the filter and pumping this lever.

 

I could use a hand identifying the other parts.

 

Once the fuel comes out, I need to find the injection pump and bleed that. I'm struggling to identify this a bit. I think it is the bit with the green arrow?

Then the bleed nuts on the injector valves themselves. Are these the nuts with the red arrows?

 

 

RED ARROWS - NO for gods sake don't undo those bolts. They look like head bolts to me. If you do undo them there is a good chance you will have found the self district button.

 

Red circle, yes that’s the priming lever, remember long slow pumps and if the lever is mostly slack when you start turn the engine about one full turn so it is mostly stiffer.

 

Your filter has three hexagons on the top, two on pipes and one a bolt head. The simple bolt head is the official bleed point but on Betas the pipes often get in the way so if you find the pipe running to the injector pump (the thing with four big nuts on top (green arrow) and loosen the union at whichever end is easiest then bleed from there but you may have to pull the pipe a away from the union to break the seal.

 

I can't see any injector pump bleed point but it may have a return pipe fitted at the place a bleed screw is often found. If you can get a phot of the full length of the injector pump it would help.

 

Back to those four big nuts and green arrow. Follow the pipes that go into those nuts to the other end where you will find similar nuts fitted to the injectors. Those are the nuts to loosen before you spin the engine on the starter until they drip/spit.

 

 

 

 

Edited August 26, 2019 by Tony Brooks

[Jen-in-Wellies]

14 minutes ago, ivan&alice said:

Then the bleed nuts on the injector valves themselves. Are these the nuts with the red arrows?

No. The bleed nuts for the injectors are at the ends of the yellow lines below, the unions holding the injector pipe to the injector. Just undo a quarter, or half turn so diesel and air can bubble out when priming, then tighten again when no more air comes out, only diesel. The red bolts are probably holding the engine together! Don't touch.

 

1 hour ago, Tony Brooks said:

That should have starter with "nowadays" because with carburettors the fuel pump free-wheeled when the carburettor was full of fuel, just like the majority of the BMC diesel lift pumps will. Spot on about vaporisation and indeed vapour locks were more common on the carburettor engines. To susch an extent the fuel pumps were often fitted with a thermal insulator between pump and engine.

Yes carbs were different, though some did spill back to the tank to prevent the pump pressure overwhelming the float chamber valve and overfilling the carb. Conversely, some fuel injection set ups on motorbikes are single ended and don't spill excess fuel back to the tank. There are always exceptions!

[jetzi]

26 minutes ago, Tony Brooks said:

RED ARROWS - NO for gods sake don't undo those bolts. They look like head bolts to me. If you do undo them there is a good chance you will have found the self district button.

? good thing I asked.

 

26 minutes ago, Tony Brooks said:

I can't see any injector pump bleed point but it may have a return pipe fitted at the place a bleed screw is often found. If you can get a phot of the full length of the injector pump it would help.

Is this photo of the injector pump?

Is there a bleed point here?

 

 

24 minutes ago, Jen-in-Wellies said:

No. The bleed nuts for the injectors are at the ends of the yellow lines below, the unions holding the injector pipe to the injector. Just undo a quarter, or half turn so diesel and air can bubble out when priming, then tighten again when no more air comes out, only diesel. The red bolts are probably holding the engine together! Don't touch.

 

Very helpful, thanks! Will only loosen the top nuts on the injectors.

[Tony Brooks]

8 minutes ago, ivan&alice said:

? good thing I asked.

 

Is this photo of the injector pump?

Is there a bleed point here?

 

 

 

 

It seems the potential injector pump bleed point is sued for a leak off pipe to make it self bleeding but I would always manually bleed from preference so I can see what is going on.

 

Look to the right of the right hand (number one) injector pipe union in the photo and you will see a slightly angled upright with some smaller hexagons on it. This is the point at which you can bleed the pump - if you have suitable access to it!

 

Loosen the top hexagon that is a pipe union while keeping the rest of that fitting stationary and bleed from there.

 

If you can't get at the union then you will just have to loosen the big nuts on the injectors and spin the engine on the starter in 30 second bursts. 98% of the time that will bleed the filter and pump. Then tighten the injector nust as they drip or spit fuel.

 

[jetzi]

Thanks.

 

I'm afraid I'm still stuck at the first step. I removed the bleed nut from the top of the filter and gave the pump around 30 long slow strokes but I'm not seeing any fuel. Persevere or am I doing something wrong?

 

It felt kind of slack so I turned the engine over with the starter. Didn't feel like it made any difference?

[Jen-in-Wellies]

Keep going. There isn't a great deal of fuel with each stroke and if the fuel filter is empty, then it can take a while to fill. I usually pre-fill the filter with diesel before spinning it on to the filter head to speed up this bit. I have a Beta 43, with the black priming knob thing on top, so a bit different from yours.

 

Jen

Edited August 26, 2019 by Jen-in-Wellies

[Tony Brooks]

15 minutes ago, Jen-in-Wellies said:

Keep going. There isn't a great deal of fuel with each stroke and if the fuel filter is empty, then it can take a while to fill. I usually pre-fill the filter with diesel before spinning it on to the filter head to speed up this bit. I have a Beta 43, with the black priming knob thing on top, so a bit different from yours.

 

Jen

Agreed on all points, especially with filling spin on fuel filters before fitting.

[jetzi]

14 minutes ago, Jen-in-Wellies said:

Keep going. There isn't a great deal of fuel with each stroke and if the fuel filter is empty, then it can take a while to fill. I usually pre-fill the filter with diesel before spinning it on to the filter head to speed up this bit. I have a Beta 43, with the black priming knob thing on top, so a bit different from yours.

 

Jen

Perserverance won the day!

I tightened up the filter bleed nuts and loosened the injector bleed nuts, and carried on pumping until I saw a tiny bit of fuel coming out of the first one. I repeated for the other three.

 

Then I noticed I hadn't completely tightened the filter bleed, because fuel was pumping out of there!

After that, cranking would start the engine for a few revs, but then it would die. I carried on cranking - probably another 5 or 6 times in 30 sec bursts - until eventually the engine is purring away.

 

It sounded a bit off at first but I think it's back to normal.

 

Could I have done her any mischief in this operation or, if it's running, it's good?

[john6767]

11 hours ago, Keeping Up said:

There are two distinctly different sizes of Beta fuel filter. One for the (older) engines that do not have a big black button on top of the filter bracket, and a different size one for the newer ones that do have the big black button (which is a manual pump for bleeding the filter). The two sizes are NOT interchangeable.

 

ETA Yours appears to be the one which does NOT have the big black button

I found that out the first time that I did this.   Mine has the black plastic button (priming pump) on the top and takes the taller of the two styles of filter.  So I suspect this should have the short one, which explains why it will not fit in.  Also is you look at the top of the filter that mates to the engine, one is convex and the other in concave so you can not put the incorrect one on.

 

The way I go about fuel filters is;  turn off fuel supply, remove the water trap/pre-filter body and clean out (mine is a mesh filter that is washed out in diesel, some have a replaceable paper filter), reassemble water trap, remove filter from the engine, put new filter on engine, turn on fuel supply, remove bleed screw from top of water trap and replace when diesel  comes out, remove bleed screw from side of engine filter housing, pump the primer pump until diesel comes out, replace bleed screw, start up engine (it will run lumpy for 5 or 10 seconds and then all is good).

[Tony Brooks]

3 minutes ago, ivan&alice said:

Perserverance won the day!

I tightened up the filter bleed nuts and loosened the injector bleed nuts, and carried on pumping until I saw a tiny bit of fuel coming out of the first one. I repeated for the other three.

 

Then I noticed I hadn't completely tightened the filter bleed, because fuel was pumping out of there!

After that, cranking would start the engine for a few revs, but then it would die. I carried on cranking - probably another 5 or 6 times in 30 sec bursts - until eventually the engine is purring away.

 

It sounded a bit off at first but I think it's back to normal.

 

Could I have done her any mischief in this operation or, if it's running, it's good?

 

No, all is fine.

 

For clarity. There are two distinct fuel system. The low pressure that is in the filter and the injector pump BODY, and the high pressure that is in the injector pi[es and injectors. You have been very lucky to get  fuel from the HIGH PRESSURE unions by using the lift pump, normally you need the injector pump spinning to send fuel to the injectors.

 

For future reference:-

 

1.fill new filter with CLEAN fuel.

2. Bleed from top of filter.

3. Bleed from body of injector pump.

4. Bleed high pressure side from the injector unions.

 

Having said that on your engine if you did 1 and 4 then as long as you have a good battery it is likely to bleed itself.

[jetzi]

Just now, john6767 said:

I found that out the first time that I did this.   Mine has the black plastic button (priming pump) on the top and takes the taller of the two styles of filter.  So I suspect this should have the short one, which explains why it will not fit in.  Also is you look at the top of the filter that mates to the engine, one is convex and the other in concave so you can not put the incorrect one on.

 

The way I go about fuel filters is;  turn off fuel supply, remove the water trap/pre-filter body and clean out (mine is a mesh filter that is washed out in diesel, some have a replaceable paper filter), reassemble water trap, remove filter from the engine, put new filter on engine, turn on fuel supply, remove bleed screw from top of water trap and replace when diesel  comes out, remove bleed screw from side of engine filter housing, pump the primer pump until diesel comes out, replace bleed screw, start up engine (it will run lumpy for 5 or 10 seconds and then all is good).

This sounds like a nice systematic way to do it!

Now that I have learned a bit about how diesel fuel systems work (thanks to @Tony Brooks and @Jen-in-Wellies) when I manage to source the proper filter I should be able to do it quite easily.

By the way - I will try to take the filter back to the chandlers but I have a feeling they won't take it as I managed to get a bit of oil on it. If not is anyone in the Uxbridge area who wants a free tall type original Beta fuel filter? Better than ending up in landfill...

[ditchcrawler]

2 hours ago, ivan&alice said:

This sounds like a nice systematic way to do it!

Now that I have learned a bit about how diesel fuel systems work (thanks to @Tony Brooks and @Jen-in-Wellies) when I manage to source the proper filter I should be able to do it quite easily.

By the way - I will try to take the filter back to the chandlers but I have a feeling they won't take it as I managed to get a bit of oil on it. If not is anyone in the Uxbridge area who wants a free tall type original Beta fuel filter? Better than ending up in landfill...

If I was them I wouldn't take and if I was buy one and they tried to sell me that I wouldn't take it. In your case we know whats happened to it but nobody else does. also remember Beta don't make filters or oil they just buy in someone else and rebadge it.

 

[Jen-in-Wellies]

28 minutes ago, ditchcrawler said:

If I was them I wouldn't take and if I was buy one and they tried to sell me that I wouldn't take it. In your case we know whats happened to it but nobody else does. also remember Beta don't make filters or oil they just buy in someone else and rebadge it.

 

And add a huge mark up! Finding equivalent part numbers for the common service parts that you can get at local motor factors, or agricultural suppliers can save you £££. The hard bit is finding out what those equivalent part numbers are for different filter manufacturers.

 

Jen

[john6767]

2 hours ago, Jen-in-Wellies said:

And add a huge mark up! Finding equivalent part numbers for the common service parts that you can get at local motor factors, or agricultural suppliers can save you £££. The hard bit is finding out what those equivalent part numbers are for different filter manufacturers.

 

Jen

There is a markup for buying Beta branded ones, they are between £9. And £10, and a non branded one is perhaps £6, at least that is what I found.  Therefore not worth your time it sourcing as you can get the Beta ones so easily when you want them.

[Jen-in-Wellies]

6 minutes ago, john6767 said:

There is a markup for buying Beta branded ones, they are between £9. And £10, and a non branded one is perhaps £6, at least that is what I found.  Therefore not worth your time it sourcing as you can get the Beta ones so easily when you want them.

Where my boat is it's a long way from any Beta stockists. A motor factors is just down the road, so for me it is worthwhile knowing the generic filter part numbers. If you are near, or pass by an inland Chandlers regularly, then buying the Beta stuff makes more sense. Where I moor it is a two day cruise each way if I wanted to fill up the diesel tank from the canal side, or visit a Chandlers! You can buy on-line, but postage starts to make the Beta branded filters look a not very good deal.

[ditchcrawler]

1 hour ago, Jen-in-Wellies said:

Where my boat is it's a long way from any Beta stockists. A motor factors is just down the road, so for me it is worthwhile knowing the generic filter part numbers. If you are near, or pass by an inland Chandlers regularly, then buying the Beta stuff makes more sense. Where I moor it is a two day cruise each way if I wanted to fill up the diesel tank from the canal side, or visit a Chandlers! You can buy on-line, but postage starts to make the Beta branded filters look a not very good deal.

I have just been looking for a hydraulic filter and was quoter £25 for the filter and £16 p&p + VAT its maybe 3" in diameter and 5" long and weighs less than a pound 

[jetzi]

By the way, my chandler (Uxbridge Boat Centre) took the filter back giving me my money back less 10%, and put it back on the shelf at the discounted price, which seemed very fair to me.

 

Still haven't found the filter I need unfortunately, but I'll keep up the search.

[rustydiver]

I can get the oil filter all ok from my local factors but end up getting my fuel ones for my beta 38 from midland chandlers (beta ones) or direct from beta in Gloucester which is just down the road from my boat. I End up getting a few at a time.

The only ting I find when I change the fuel filter is that I can never remove the filter so end up taking the filter block off and taking to a friends garage to get off. It goes on hand tight but is a right bar steward to unscrew again.

Edited September 7, 2019 by rustydiver