Diesel Racor Cleaning

Audrey II

Audrey II

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I have had my boat for about 9 years and in this time I have replaced the Racor filters on a regular basis. The first year I found I had bad fuel and I was fowling the filter after only a few hours I had the fuel polished and problem went away. So fast forward and I learned that changing the filter is only half of the routine maintenance. Today I decided it was time to clean the bowl, what I found was surprising! While the bowl has always seemed a bit dark it looked red as one would expect but I must of pulled out 1/2 maybe even 3/4 of a cup of dirt and sludge. It was hard to drain the bowl being the plug was clogged with sludge. So I figured I would share this experience with others to let some of you know it is not a big deal to separate the bowl and clean it out what is in there may surprise you as well! This was much easier then I expected or I would have done it long ago. I wish I took before and after pictures.
 
Dave- Do you add biocide just before each filling of tanks to help keep microbe growth at bay? If not, I wonder if that might reduce deposits after the 1st tankful.

FWIW- Biobor-JF is one of many popular biocides available, but not all diesel additives contain biocide.
 
I do not use any additives at all. This said the first year that I owned my boat I had discovered it had bad fuel so at that time I treated the fuel to kill the algae after I did I fowled many filters within a few hours I would clog a brand new filter. At the end of the first season with the boat I polished the fuel from this point forward I have not used any additives and I stopped fowling filters. I believe the crud in my bowl has been there for 8 years! Now that the bowl is clean I can see what it is supposed to look like and it will be easy to keep an eye on it in the future. Many years ago a wise captain told me the only thing these additives are good for are draining your wallet unless of course you have an issue like bad fuel. As long as I owned the boat I didn't know that the parts inside the bowl were actually white I thought they were black. This filter could not have been working well in it's condition!
 
Dave:
I agree. I never use additives either . Good report . I always shine a light through the bowls for a better look. IMO it is a real confidence builder to see clean bowls. I disagree with the folks who want only spin on filters because they have no insection bowls
 
We never used additives for microbes except for the very rare occasion when poor fuel was taken on and then only for a shock treatment.
Every boat we have owned gets vacuum gages right away so we know the condition of the filtration - only about $25 per gage so really cannot go wrong.
Over the years we have had Racor's as initial filtration and also bulk spin on's. The added bulk spin on's had many advantages and they are what we really preferred and would recommend for cruisers headed out for longer trips.(this post is a perfect example why)
A bulk spin on in place of or in front of a RAcor will:
- add much larger filtration area
- extend filter life by 300-400%
- is simple/quick to remove/replace
- has no parts to leak save for one gasket
- economical
- requires no cleaning or maintenance
 
I like having the clear bowl to inspect as well the problem I had was as long as I owned the boat the bowl looked like it did now I have something to compare it to. Now I can actually see any and all dirt that exists in the bowl before it was so dirty that the only thing I could have seen would have been if I picked up water which I did not.
Smitty where can you buy the gauges for $25 I haven't looked in a while but I thought they where more like $75 each. I would really like to buy them!
 
I have no objection to spin ons in addition to clear bowl filters just not the only filter. recording gauges for $25 sounds great. Gauges tell the condition of the filter the sight bowl shows some indication of the condition of the fuel going to the filter.
 
"I like having the clear bowl to inspect as well the problem I had was as long as I owned the boat the bowl looked like it did now I have something to compare it to. Now I can actually see any and all dirt that exists in the bowl before it was so dirty that the only thing I could have seen would have been if I picked up water which I did not."

The problem I have experienced is that the color and your ability to determine what 'level' of good they are means almost nothing.
Without a vac gage the color can actually be misleading...
- it looks 'dark' but it is not that loaded up
- it looks 'light' but the vac gage shows near 11"
- it looks OK but there is an air leak in the many Racor gaskets
- it looks OK but the one way ball valve you cannot see is hanging up
etc

I have learned the hard way that looks can be misleading and changing filters by looks is a subjective task not a proactive practice.
All the engines that I have owned have had dedicated 'on engine' water separators which were easy to see and clean- although I cannt ever remember a time when we had to drain them.

The vac gages I have bought have mostly been from the gagestore online and also a couple from ebay but any reasonable vac gage will do that fits your application.
In my case I wanted then to mount in the fuel hose slightly away from the fuel filters and be larger with the ability to be filled with glycerin to prevent needle bounce. The gages I most used were 2" faced, stainless housings, 0-30", full sweep, bottom mount, 2% full sweep accuracy and could be 'wet' with glycerin. I would also add 'snubbers' on the fuel inlet side to further dampen the shock loads to the gage from fuel line pulsation.
I will try and dig up a picture later on to post of some of these - I had added more than a dozen over the years with a few boats with great results.
 
"I have no objection to spin ons in addition to clear bowl filters just not the only filter. recording gauges for $25 sounds great. Gauges tell the condition of the filter the sight bowl shows some indication of the condition of the fuel going to the filter."

One of my best upgrades (based upon 1,000 miles + each year/ 1,000 gallons each year) was to remove some less desirable Racor's and replace with spin on's that fed the on engine filters. Each engine had a bulk spin on, then a finer spjn on then the one engine filter with vac gages after each spin on - 4 gages between two engines.
Some of those filters went 3-4 seasons before requiring changes and my vac gages gave me instant trouble shooting for both plugged filters and also for air leaks.
The limited fuel sample in the clear bowls have little correlation with the fuels condition.
Besides the firsthand experience with my marine diesels I had some limited background in fuel and fuel condition in my working past...

Please - no intention to start any kind of unintentional offence but des anyone rally have a "color chart" on what colors are good and bad and under what light and distance of fuel you need to view these charts?

I see no viable substitution for a reading on a vac gage that is both measurable, accurate, and repeatable for filter status.
 
2" face, 2% accuracy full sweep, bottom mount , SS case, fluid filled with glycerin with 'snubbers' in line...

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Smitty - I see what looks like a pin at the top of your gauge. Does your gauge hold max vac reading so the engine doesn't need to be running at advanced rpm, or at all, to see if there is a restriction, and the pin resets needle to 0 ?
If I had diesels so the vac gauge was permitted, I'd think the resettable max reader would be worth extra expense to me.
 
"Smitty - I see what looks like a pin at the top of your gauge. Does your gauge hold max vac reading so the engine doesn't need to be running at advanced rpm, or at all, to see if there is a restriction, and the pin resets needle to 0 ?
If I had diesels so the vac gauge was permitted, I'd think the resettable max reader would be worth extra expense to me.
Sandy"

Good eye and catch - the top does not have a pin but is a vent that allows the top of the gage to be open or closed, for filling and or keeping the glycerin inside.
I find tell tale pointers of limited value IMO.
The gages are mounted in a space where they can easily be viewed by eye while underway and on the last boat they could additionally be viewed by camera(s).
If you do not have fuel line pulse dampeners the highest readings during shutdown, startup and other activities could be misleading.
When you actually watch these gages underway ad under load you get to see what is really going on and how filters react both when new and when approaching their ended of useful life.
Similarly with oil pressure, water temps, boost, and tachs - tell tales do not really tell me what I am looking to know.

I have always added EGT , boost , & vacuum gages to know what my engines are doing in real time.
 
"Gauges tell the condition of the filter the sight bowl shows some indication of the condition of the fuel going to the filter.
To each his own."

Hello Bruce,

Please help me understand how you would teach someone else to read the colors and know where the current fuel filter status stands?
When would it be 1/4 used up , 1/2 etc? How is the bowl color/tint exactly determined? If you have access to a color gage or a chart please share that so that all may benefit.

If color works well with fuel oil condition can we do the same process with lube oil?
 
Awww Smitty you know lube oil gets balck very quickly however i did once see a paper chromatography process used for some tests.

As for fuel color I have never seen a color chart. To mee if the fuel isnt its normal color something is changing and needs watching. It will lose its clarity and get darker in color with contaminants. Quite easy to see once you become familiar with it. similar to many things on boats you learn how it normally looks, feels or sounds and can detect issues before they appear other ways.
It is a great confidance builder to see clean fuel, with out water, in the pre undocking inspection tour.
 
Use Biobor JF and you sill see it improve. I use it every tank and my mechanic says he never saw saw a cleaner racor.
 
"Awww Smitty you know lube oil gets balck very quickly however i did once see a paper chromatography process used for some tests."
I have the paper tests for lube oil in my tool box - they are very uninformative and quite crude but you can buy them now.

"As for fuel color I have never seen a color chart. To mee if the fuel isnt its normal color something is changing and needs watching. It will lose its clarity and get darker in color with contaminants. Quite easy to see once you become familiar with it. similar to many things on boats you learn how it normally looks, feels or sounds and can detect issues before they appear other ways.
It is a great confidance builder to see clean fuel, with out water, in the pre undocking inspection tour."

Your thoughts seem to be that the color will let you know when the fuel is poor or the filter needs changing. Have you been running vacuum gages in the pre-filters to get a feel for this?
The way things look feel and sound can often mislead as well - when we worked cleaning multi million gallon fuel storage tanks the test machinery related fuel condition prior to the process. After looking at the fuel from a few dozen storage tanks in NJ it becomes more obvious that color is not a good correlation to fuel condition or cleanliness.
 
Dave:
I agree. I never use additives either . Good report . I always shine a light through the bowls for a better look. IMO it is a real confidence builder to see clean bowls. I disagree with the folks who want only spin on filters because they have no insection bowls
 
As far as the gauge goes I was looking for a tee handle gauge to put on the Racors.
 
"I always shine a light through the bowls for a better look. IMO it is a real confidence builder to see clean bowls. I disagree with the folks who want only spin on filters because they have no insection bowls"

Hello Bruce - how often do you see problems when you look in the bowls? What do you do then when you see problems with the color tint?
I also pointed out that I used bulk spin on filters in front of the Racors on my past boat with good results as well. Would the color in those Racor bowls help any kind of determination?
 
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