Fuel polished, Racor filter cleaned and engine bleed - 2013

End of September - currently in Paradise Village Marina in Banderas Bay Mexico (by Puerto Vallarta)

 Today was a busy day. We first worked with Elizabeth's crew. Elizabeth owns a chandlery here at the Paradise Village Marina. There are two chandlers. She also owns SG Boatworks who the crew works for.

s\v Elegant'sea to starboard.. 

 They first removed the fuel gauge and went into the tank from that port. It is small but worked out. They pumped out the fuel and then poked around getting any crud they could. There was not a lot of water but enough.

They did a nice job and polished all 80 gal of fuel twice or maybe three times. Then they pumped it back into the 80 gal fuel tank. 

Then they put back the tank gauge and we supplied some acetone and some silicone which they used to seal up the fuel gauge port.

And off they go!

 They finished about 1:00 PM and that's about the time I started on cleaning the Racor fuel filter... I only did one, as remember it is about 95 deg here and 88 percent humidity. So there is a lot of sweating going on. After we're up and running we will pick a day and turn on the AC, then clean the second Racor filer. Too much in and out today to have the Mermaid Marine Air AC(HVAC) running, at least in the salon area.

Debbie helping get the bowl off the Racor fuel filter..

 

Some of the crud.

 

 Now these filters were not as cruddy last month. They were cruddy enough for us to have scheduled for them to come apart and be cleaned next month.  What we think happened is water got into the fuel tank. The water settles on the bottom of the tank and then works its way to the Racor filters. The one we were using was full of water. We did not think to look closely at the filters as we have only been running the motor once a month and what could happen just sitting here. Well plenty as you and we now know. Now we will run the motor each week, why not - we live aboard! We will definitely check for water in the filters now. When cruising when we reach a port we drain the filters before sailing to the next port or every 10 hours, which ever is first.

 So we got the filter apart and cleaned it out. We had to give the plastic bowl a couple hacks with the rubber hammer to get it loose.

 So we looked at the possible suspects for water leakage. Remember, we get 38 inches of rain in Puerto Vallarta Mexico in August;September about the same. Now in Paradise Village Marina which is in the Northern part of Banderas Bay we get less but still we get a lot of rain. It was raining mostly at night so it did not seem like there was much rain but there is.

 So the deck fill is the most likely place for water to get into the fuel tank on our Islander Freeport sail boat. We removed the cap and the O ring, then cleaned it up.

You can see one hole here with the light shinning through. Without the O-ring.

Debbie noticed a couple holes in the cap. Looks like they are there on purpose or by a machining accident. Maybe the O-ring is supposed to keep the water out, still holes?

See hole?

Debbie put silicone in the holes to seal them and then we put a new O-ring on close as we could get to original and then Debbie put silicone on the cap in with a bead around the top. We will not need fuel for months.

We checked under the deck but it looked sealed up good.

We did tighten the deck screws and tomorrow we will climb back into the lazerett and silicone up this whole deck fill and around the hose joint etc. just to make sure there is no leaking. The dark area is not leakage.

We talked about the vent but was assured it was not a problem but we will check that out too.

About 2:00 PM Jack and his assistant showed up, that was on-time. Jack is a diesel mechanic. We could have done this ourselves if we had to at sea but we thought this was a better approach. He spent less than an hour with us bleeding the motor and we learned a few things.

Jacks assistant Frank.

Jack.

 We got the motor started and ran it for a while. We thought we should disconnect the fuel lines to the Racor fitters and drain out any water but Jack said to just let Racor do it. We got the motor started after some tries as there was water in the injectors. Jack left and we let the motor run for about 10 more minutes. Then we shut down the motor and drained out more water from the Racor filter. Then we started the motor up and put the motor in gear and it died. We tried several times to start it and could not. I called Jack on our Mexican cell phone and he said it must be air locked and would come by tomorrow to show me how to bleed it out. After hanging up I was thinking how could it get air in the system? Then it came to me! Damn, I forgot to back fill the Racor filter after draining the water out. Just a mistake made because we are out of practice.

 We want to back fill the Racor filters without using a jug of diesel fuel.  I was thinking of adding a valve in the fuel line to get some diesel fuel. Jack mentioned using a 12 volt inline pump with an on\off switch. Makes it easier to bleed the system in a seaway and would back fill the Racors. They are sold at Auto Zone so you know where we are going soon. John and Kelly installed one for their Perkins 4 107 and like it. They just blew a rod on there newly re-built Perkins and got towed into La Cruz as Paradise Village was further and the channel more difficult. That is another story for another post.

 Tomorrow Jack is stopping by to see me bleed out the air in the fuel system - make sure I do it ok :)