- Joined
- Jun 26, 2003
- RO Number
- 11790
- Messages
- 72
After months of stalling motors and losing fuel prime to my motors too regularly we gave up and took the beast apart this weekend and replumbed the fuel lines from tank to motor....
This weekend my father and I did the following:
We removed the extremely hardened blue-ish fuel ines that went from the 4 tanks to a manifold 20-inches above the cockpit floor...tossed them after it took us 4 hours to remove them - ugh.
We took out the manifold and completely took it apart to make sure it was clean, all valves worked well, and that the minimal diameter of any valve was 1/2-inch or larger. One smaller valve that runs to the genny was messed up so we replaced it. We then completely re-assembled it with freh teflon tape, and checked it under air preassure for leaks.
We then mounted it on the front wall of the engine room about 18" below the cockpit floor.
We removed the hardware on top of the tanks and looked in - no sign of gunk or debris. We replaced the 90-dedree fictures at top of the tubes with 45-degree 1/2-inch ones and made sure the pickup tube had no stuck ball or dirty screen in it, was clean, and was at least 1/2 inch diameter.
We also changed the venting - the port tanks were sharing a 5/8 hose/vent as were the starboard tanks. We made sure each tank had it's own dedicated 5/8 vent hose whcih required drilling from inside upside down and redicoulous amounts of nuckle blood but ...it's done.
At this point we decided to use lines, valves, and connectors that were a minimum of 1/2-inch inside diameter from tanks all the way to through the Racor (90 gph capable) filters. We originally were going to run 3/8-inch but figured for the small amount of extra cash and identical labor...go for 1/2-inch. From the racors the hose will be 3/8 and go through Navman fuel meters and into the motor without the on-motor merc filters. The racors are 10 micron filters and the mercs were 70 mics and racors flow much better so ...byebye mercs.
The coolest part is that now the fuel run from the forward tank to the motor is less than 7 feet TOTAL. There were runs before in excess of 18 feet.....with vertical runs of over 4 feet from the bottom of the tank up to manifold and back down into the engine bay - messy and complicated and unreliable.
I'll keep you folks posted but feeling pretty confident that the fuel problems should go away at this point. Wont know for a week - still have a cockpit floor to put back in and was missing 2 barbed fittings so couldnt quite finish today and will be on the road this week - dohhhhhh wanted to try it out.
Thanks to George for his excellent advice as usual!
This weekend my father and I did the following:
We removed the extremely hardened blue-ish fuel ines that went from the 4 tanks to a manifold 20-inches above the cockpit floor...tossed them after it took us 4 hours to remove them - ugh.
We took out the manifold and completely took it apart to make sure it was clean, all valves worked well, and that the minimal diameter of any valve was 1/2-inch or larger. One smaller valve that runs to the genny was messed up so we replaced it. We then completely re-assembled it with freh teflon tape, and checked it under air preassure for leaks.
We then mounted it on the front wall of the engine room about 18" below the cockpit floor.
We removed the hardware on top of the tanks and looked in - no sign of gunk or debris. We replaced the 90-dedree fictures at top of the tubes with 45-degree 1/2-inch ones and made sure the pickup tube had no stuck ball or dirty screen in it, was clean, and was at least 1/2 inch diameter.
We also changed the venting - the port tanks were sharing a 5/8 hose/vent as were the starboard tanks. We made sure each tank had it's own dedicated 5/8 vent hose whcih required drilling from inside upside down and redicoulous amounts of nuckle blood but ...it's done.
At this point we decided to use lines, valves, and connectors that were a minimum of 1/2-inch inside diameter from tanks all the way to through the Racor (90 gph capable) filters. We originally were going to run 3/8-inch but figured for the small amount of extra cash and identical labor...go for 1/2-inch. From the racors the hose will be 3/8 and go through Navman fuel meters and into the motor without the on-motor merc filters. The racors are 10 micron filters and the mercs were 70 mics and racors flow much better so ...byebye mercs.
The coolest part is that now the fuel run from the forward tank to the motor is less than 7 feet TOTAL. There were runs before in excess of 18 feet.....with vertical runs of over 4 feet from the bottom of the tank up to manifold and back down into the engine bay - messy and complicated and unreliable.
I'll keep you folks posted but feeling pretty confident that the fuel problems should go away at this point. Wont know for a week - still have a cockpit floor to put back in and was missing 2 barbed fittings so couldnt quite finish today and will be on the road this week - dohhhhhh wanted to try it out.
Thanks to George for his excellent advice as usual!