Fuel filter choice

[Stephen Oliver]

Following on from my fuel line questions

I have purchased locally the only fuel filter heads I can find, the have a 1″ -14 thread bosses on them. I’m proposing to use a FS1218 primary and an FS1000 secondary. As they share the same thread the same heads can be used. Is this an acceptable combo for a 6bta 330.i have clean tanks, do about 70 ish hours a year so assume my filter change intervals may be quite long?

Current setup is a single racor 500 (yes you read that right) and after a year there is barely any muck in them. They are obviously woefully inadequate even though they have been operating for 20+ years, but starting to weep here and there and messy as hell to change

I’d appreciate your thoughts on the filter combo anyway..

Steve

Topic

[Rob Schepis]

Deep V …. NOPE! Sharp entry that flattens out to almost nothing. She really gets up and goes and does it efficiently. Here’s some hull shots and some engine room shots showing the room at centerline and to the sides. Works very well.

[Stephen Oliver]

Thanks Rob

Last chance are currently remote so will move them back to make things simpler and cleaner. One less set of pipes to chafe, vibrate etc and less clutter running down the hill beams. I’ll replace the last chance filter with new and then forget about it for a few years 😁

Is yours a deep v? Seem widely spaced. That said I can crawl between mine pretty easily and I’m 6’1 and 220lbs. If I put the filters there not a chance of getting past. There is also a floor beam directly above the engine crawl space so it’s not like I can walk down between them .. not a great design but I can sit and work on the engines.. picture attached to show what I mean… Just working on tidying wiring and piping up, getting rid of old wiring attached to nothing etc..

Steve

[Rob Schepis]

Yes, leave it be, keep it simple. With your excellent primary filtration you won’t have to get to it unexpectedly because it is clogged, so it can be part of your PM when you’re in that area (pump, aftercooler, etc).

Thanks Steve. BTW, my Chris is 36 x 13.

[Stephen Oliver]

Me again..

So reading a bit more on remote last chance as mine has.. and Tony made the comment (in another post) with the right filtration up front (mine being the FS1218 and then FS1000) the last chance should last for 1000’s of hours? If this is the case i Really have no need to have remote last chance filters and would probably be better off putting them back on the engine to save more pipework running everywhere? Does this sound like a decent idea? Port engine access is crap.. but I should be able to do it as i will be replacing the fuel inlet and returns anyway.. I can whip the aftercooler off to make it easier too?

By the way nice filter set up rob.. wish I had the room.. but I think we are a bit narrower than you being only 13ft but 45ft long.. so filters are being relocated from the rear of the boat to the front of the engine compartment. access is clearer and it allows them to be fixed to the bulkhead (we only have one bulkhead on the boat)

Look forward to your thoughts

Steve

[Rob Schepis]

Auspost, yup that was the holdup and zero as to any tracking/updates….

A little yellow RS on the JIC is good.

As to the tapered threads I have had excellent results with the RS Tru Blu

[Stephen Oliver]

Hi Rob

Unfortunately the heads have no extra ports (one less thing to weep I guess in the myriad of connections I need!) however they can be added to fittings if / when required. Tanks are very clean as mentioned and I can go 50-100 hours on the racor 500 filter with almost no dirt. We get very little in the way of condensation in the tanks here so no bug and the fuel bowser we use gets pretty heavy usage so fuel is always fresh from the refinery.

Filter price wise i’m looking at a pair of FS1218’s for a mere $70aud total (40usd ish for the 2) and the FS1000’s (x2) for $56 aud total ($33 usd for 2) and if I want to change them once every 2 or even 3 years – its still cheap.. from what Tony says its likely i’ll never need to change them, but I will as a matter of course. I’m also putting the squeeze bulb in for priming.

As another question.. on JIC fittings, is it typical to use any sealant on the threads? Same goes for any tapered BSP threads that I will be using? I have standard yellow rectorseal here, but is anything else any better? If needs be I can epoxy (jbweld) some of the BSP stuff as it should never need to be disassembled.

Shipping is a mess even without COVID – US to Australia is now pretty expensive but typically 3-5 days for DHL / UPS etc. Aus to US is very expensive unless you use Auspost and then honestly you’d be better walking here to fetch it! – We are seeing 2 weeks from Perth to Sydney parcel postage times. Mainly due to the system being overloaded due to people at home doing online shopping. Main issue for us at the moment is the exchange – a few years back we were 1:1 with the USD if not higher. Now we are at 0.6:1 so we are only tending to buy stuff we really need or can only get from SBMar.. things like engine mounts and the big hitter stuff where its cheaper still to buy from you.

Steve

[Rob Schepis]

Sounds good Steve. Are the heads provisioned with an 1/8″npt port for vac gauges?

How are shipping times to/from the states right now? I ordered a part from Australia Mar 19th and recvd it here in New York on Apr 27th…. Maybe things have been sorted out better now, don’t know…

[Stephen Oliver]

Hi Tony

Thanks – Yes understood its overkill – however the filters are cheap in Aus so i’d rather have too much filtration!

I will check out the size of the gaskets – thanks for the heads up there. Regarding Port Size – they are 7/8 ports which I am adapting to 1/2″ hose as per your recommendations in Tony Tips ( about 8ft tank to filter and about 6ft filter to engine – minimal fittings and tank bottom sitting about level height wise with lift pump tank about 2ft deep)

Again I would have preferred to purchase from you, but the AUD is killing us at the moment so cost wise its about 1/2 the cost to buy locally (admittedly not the same quality though!) Hopefully the $ can get back up there so I can start spending some of my hard eared money with you guys again!

Steve

[Tony Athens]

At such low annual hours, not sure what you need a FS 1218, but that is your call. Maybe 1000 hours before replacement with typical old & dirty tanks??

Be sure that the filter heads you bought will fit FS1218’s larger diameter gasket..There is way more to a filter head than the thread that holds the filter.. .. Plus, you have the port ID in the heads–Not all filter head are created equal..

[Author]

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