Clean diesel is one of the really, really essential components of keeping the auxiliary engine running.
The best is clearly not to get any contamination into the tank in the first place. Hopefully a newly acquired Racor filter funnel will help with this. These funnels filter out not only the hard bits that may be found in diesel, but also separates the water and retains it in the funnel.
The second step is to add a pre-filter to the fuel delivery line. Iris is equipped with a Racor 500fg filter system. Ideally I would have liked to have a dual Racor 500ma system with a switch-over between filters in case one gets clogged. Regretfully, there is not space in the engine compartments for such a rig. Hence I have concluded that the 500fg will have to do.
The replaceable filter box is, however, enclosed in a metal holder. It is a such impossible to check how dirty the filter is. Through a blog or five, I have come across sailors that have added a vacuum gauge to the suction side of the filter. If the vacuum is high, the engine really has to suck to get fuel, hence the filter is dirty and needs to be replaced.
Racor deliver a solution where you might add the gauge to the top of the filter kit. Rumors will have it that this solution of prone to leaks. Secondly on Iris there is not enough height to add this.
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| The final result |
The solution has been to add the vacuum gauge to the engine side of the filter. With the dimensions in question, that has been a real challenge. It have been around town to all the so called professionals, but none of the could really solve the puzzle. Finally I ended up at GH Fittings, a company that also makes custom fitting. The fellow just looked at the dimensions and said, “we can do this, but it will surely look like a real christmas tree”. A christmas tree it is, but is seems to work.
Now it is just to cross fingers and hope for clean diesel being fed to the engine.
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| The christmas tree |