Fuel cooler leak, a cautionary tale

[Robert Vetrano]

Just wanted to share a piggyback story to my other post about flushing my seawater circuit. I did that this weekend. Ran the boat yesterday and got a few water in fuel warnings on the smartcraft. Racor was full of water on 3 occasions. Long story short…..I pulled my seawater hose off the fuel cooler and there were red diesel droplets in the water.

I guess I can only attribute this to the acid flush loosening up some corrosion on the fuel cooler and promoting the leak. I believe in my prior research on this forum that this is why its recommended to bench service(which did summer 2019) the seawater circuit for a baseline, rather than flushing….to prevent this very scenario. I guess the 13yo coolers had probably reached their end of life.

The more you know.

Topic

[Robert Vetrano]

Thanks Tony,
New coolers already on the way. How does one test for a restriction?

[Tony Athens]

You better pressure test your fuel cooler(s) 10-15PSI max –If the water made it to the Racors, it’s in your fuel tanks—————————————————-Lots of it..

Make sure there is close to ZERO return fuel restriction in you engine fuel return circuit.

1 user thanked author for this post.

Robert Vetrano

[Robert Vetrano]

donald roth wrote:

That’s a close call, you might want to consider a set of Double Doubles!

The Racors will collapse when fully loaded with water.

Edit: disregard

[Mark Gambini]

Fuel cooler leak

I have qsc 500’s and on my survey we found trace amounts of sodium in the transmission oil. Replaced coolers, flushed with 10 wt oil.
Replaced with 30, took new oil samples. Tested good

1 user thanked author for this post.

Robert Vetrano

[donald roth]

That’s a close call, you might want to consider a set of Double Doubles!
The Racors will collapse when fully loaded with water.

1 user thanked author for this post.

Robert Vetrano

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