duncan
Active member
..... I thought, as a cursory glance at the Racor filter int eh failing light suggested bug was the cause of the engine cutting and refusing to start.
Having had the we beastie badly in May 2002, and been pouring the stuff into the tank with gay abandon ever since, I was less than pleased to be bobbing around 8 miles off Swanage long after everyone else seemed to have gone home!
The crew were considerably calmer that the conditions and we managed to bleed the system through sufficinetly to restart once but that was shortlived so we called on a small favour from friends who had gone back much earlier in displacement craft but hadn't quite escaped to their berths. Both craft insisted on coming back out in the deteriorating conditions and, many hours later we were tied up in Dolphin Haven and catching last orders whilst thinking up what to do next.
The spare filters that were definitely on the boat had disappeared (which is why we hadn't replaced them both) so new ones were aquired first thing and we set about bleeding the system through - this proved very difficult.
The primary hadn't really been that dirty, little water had come out of the seperator and we started to look elsewhere for our problem.
The boat has an electromagnetic solenoid wired to the ignition, which is the first item before the seperator then then the lift pump / primary /fuel pump etc - we were getting an audible click on switching on teh ignition but we bypassed it anyway and managed to get the engine going fine a few minutes priming later.
Returning to the boat a week later I stripped the solenoid and sure enough it was completely solid with crap - a few larger bits had got to it then obviously they had started to 'filter' smaller particles until the result was a complete blockage.None of this looked like bug - fragments of leaves and some tiny bits of paper (the source of which is believed to be related to a manufacturing incident that was supposed to have been resolved).
So
(1) glad I didn't scream at Depsol in open forum before investigating further
(2) anyone else had these things get blocked?
(3) there would seem to be a logic to having a filter before the cutoff - but I supose an even greater safety one for where it is?
(4) never seen stripping and cleaning it mentioned in any servicing manual or article ever (?)
Oh and the filters turned up in a plastic carrier of fishing line reels that had been removed from the boat a week earlier by mistake - how do these things happen!
<hr width=100% size=1>madesco madidum ..../forums/images/icons/smile.gif
Having had the we beastie badly in May 2002, and been pouring the stuff into the tank with gay abandon ever since, I was less than pleased to be bobbing around 8 miles off Swanage long after everyone else seemed to have gone home!
The crew were considerably calmer that the conditions and we managed to bleed the system through sufficinetly to restart once but that was shortlived so we called on a small favour from friends who had gone back much earlier in displacement craft but hadn't quite escaped to their berths. Both craft insisted on coming back out in the deteriorating conditions and, many hours later we were tied up in Dolphin Haven and catching last orders whilst thinking up what to do next.
The spare filters that were definitely on the boat had disappeared (which is why we hadn't replaced them both) so new ones were aquired first thing and we set about bleeding the system through - this proved very difficult.
The primary hadn't really been that dirty, little water had come out of the seperator and we started to look elsewhere for our problem.
The boat has an electromagnetic solenoid wired to the ignition, which is the first item before the seperator then then the lift pump / primary /fuel pump etc - we were getting an audible click on switching on teh ignition but we bypassed it anyway and managed to get the engine going fine a few minutes priming later.
Returning to the boat a week later I stripped the solenoid and sure enough it was completely solid with crap - a few larger bits had got to it then obviously they had started to 'filter' smaller particles until the result was a complete blockage.None of this looked like bug - fragments of leaves and some tiny bits of paper (the source of which is believed to be related to a manufacturing incident that was supposed to have been resolved).
So
(1) glad I didn't scream at Depsol in open forum before investigating further
(2) anyone else had these things get blocked?
(3) there would seem to be a logic to having a filter before the cutoff - but I supose an even greater safety one for where it is?
(4) never seen stripping and cleaning it mentioned in any servicing manual or article ever (?)
Oh and the filters turned up in a plastic carrier of fishing line reels that had been removed from the boat a week earlier by mistake - how do these things happen!
<hr width=100% size=1>madesco madidum ..../forums/images/icons/smile.gif
