Debris in algae in fuel?

[Brent]

New to this forum. Have twin VP IPS D6 435 hp engines. Primary racor to the “last chance” engine mounted oem VP fuel filter. Had a rougher cruise back to winter storage in the fall – a bit over an hour run. Had to come off plane for a no wake and then back up on plane and had my stbd engine cut when going up on plane. Limped to the marina at <1500 rpm. Have a racor before the engine mounted filter as the primary filter in the mfg setup. Never noticed any water. Diesel in the bowl *might* possibly have been darker than typical. Boat does not run often – 5-10 hr/season calm water cruises for the past five years. In 2019 she stayed on land.

Pulled the racor and found a logjam of debris with only some debris at the top of the filter packed in the head restricted by the primer bulb check valve. pretty much all amassed there almost like seaweed. Cant tell if this is algae growth or actual debris? 600 hr on engines and 2009. Sabotage?

Topic

[Clark Leighs]

I missed the boat  Should have suggested better filtering also. If you add another filter, mud fltr,  add the telltale vacuum guages.   They will help tip you off to the filters gathering stuff rather than waiting for a power loss or shutdown.   The telltales will tip you off even without watching as the one needle will stay at the highest reading untill  YOU reset it.  

 

Check Seaboard’s listings.

[Tony Athens]

Does it really matter whether it is algae or asphaltene of somethings else?  Not to me.. You need to get your Racor clean and then install a simple to change high-capacity bulk separator or “Mud” filter in front of your Racor as a primary filter..

 

[Clark Leighs]

I know this is now an old thread but I will comment for any others that see this.

Black?   

Sorry but I disagree.   It looks to me like “ashphaltene”   which is a natural by product of aging diesel fuel.

Algae usually presents as a long stringy, slimey mess, not pieces.    

Boats that are not used so get no fresh fuel over a long period of time are more likely to be subject to this.

The rough trip stirred it up and broke a bunch off of the tank walls and the bottom.

You may need to arrange for a fuel cleaning to get rid of the bulk of it.

The formation can be slowed a lot by the use of a good stabilizer but not stopped.   But use a stabilizer if you cannot run the boat and use the fuel .  Even better is use the boat so it needs fresh fuel.

 

JMO

[Mike Mason]

That’s algae

Mike

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Brent

[Brent]

racor housing – inlet valve

[Author]

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