Cummins Marine Diesel Repower Specialists Forums General Discussion Remote oil and fuel filters/manifolds – Safe?

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  • #37513

    Paul
    Participant
    Vessel Name: Changes in L'Attitudes
    Engines: Twin Cummins 330HP 6BTA 5.9-M-3
    Location: Merritt Island, FL
    Country: USA

    Watching some engine maintenance/troubleshooting Youtube videos I’ve become jealous of a couple of things.

    One – man, some folks have big engine rooms – they can easily get to both sides of their engines. I have to lay/crawl between the fuel tank and the engine to get to the outboard side of the engine (can’t be done with a hot engine).

    Two – Saw an engine room that had a fuel system management manifold. The manifold had valves to allow lining up tank suction, as well as engine supply and return. Basically allowing each engine to have two sources of supply and return. I would assume for the genny also.

    Three – Saw an engine room that had ‘remote’ oil filters mounted on the engine room’s forward bulkhead. So very easy to change the filters. On either side of the filters were ports to support their hard mounted oil change system. Suck from the port upstream of the filter, then fill into the port downstream of the filter.

    As an old fat man getting outboard to change a fuel or oil filter isn’t the easiest thing in the world, so I would love these ‘remote’ setups. I could even envision ‘bypassing/blanking’ the onengine fuel filter and simply place it down stream of the Racor and manifold in the engine’s supply line (not sure how that would work pressure/flow wise).

    So my question is this … aside from the inherent risks in having more valves and longer runs of hoses for fuel and oil … would it be a good investment to install remote system like these?

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  • #37519

    Bill Desmarais
    Moderator
    Vessel Name: Extremist
    Engines: Cummins 6BTA 370
    Location: Portsmouth, NH
    Country: United States

    I had remote oil and fuel filters on the original 1996 6BTA 370s in the 31 Blackfin Combi. same deal…had to be the size of an eight year old hanging upside down to do any work on the outside of either engine.
    Does make changing filters a breeze.
    Remote fuel on the Port engine and remote oil on the Starboard. One of each on the correct engine puts all the filters in between the engines.

    I bought the boat in 2008…put about 100 hrs on the boat,,,engines hrs showed 600 or so and twelve years of salt water marine age in S. Florida.

    I started to notice a diesel fuel smell under the engine hatch. And then the “color red” under the port engine.
    Nothing dramatic..seepage. First I figured maybe a fitting on the fuel pump or fuel block. Two of the fancy blue Parker fuel lines with the metal mesh under the blue rubber cover draped under the oil pan.

    What had happened is that over the years with vibration and all, the edge of the oil pan chafed a gouge in the fuel line that over time rusted out the metal mesh and eventually leaked. The line was too short. I replaced the line with more droop and wrapped a chafe guard. All was fixed.

    #37515

    Philip
    Participant
    Vessel Name: 2007 35’ Cabo ‘FUGA’
    Engines: Cummins QSC8.3-540’s
    Location: Long Beach, CA

    Paul

    I would recommend you keep things as simple as possible especially on the fuel system. All those valves and manifolds are all sources of air leaks, fuel leaks, and if it gets configured wrong you can overpressurize your fuel cooler. Most of us think we are too smart and careful to never configure it wrong but I guarantee you mix in a little fatigue, dehydration, time pressure, etc and next thing you know you have a bigger problem.

    You can easily remote mount the oil and fuel filters

    Remote Oil Filter Kit for Cummins Marine 6BTA

    Talk to Seaboard about a remote mount engine filter setup the same as the oil.

    As for oil change I would install something like this…

    http://reversopumps.com/oil-change-systems/oil-change-3010-light-duty

    And I would plumb it from the oil pan drain. I would fill direct instead of pumping back in.

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