Fuel Vent Emissions Manifold - Leaking - C-Dory 23

[crowleykirk]

Hello Brats Hope you're all having a great summer.

I've run into an issue and an extremely poor design flaw IMO, on a new C-Dory 23 Venture.

Been smelling gas in my starboard battery box and at the back of the boat for awhile now and could not find the issue. I did have full tanks vent fuel out the fill inlets and cap, ran down the side of the boat and wrecked the pin striping and silicone seal. So if your tanks are full and it gets hot, they will spill out fuel. Just FYI. Obvious fix for that. I had no choice with full tanks at the time as I could not get the boat in the water. Some of you know the story.

She is home now and headed to Newport Beach next week. Yeah.

So once all that was cleaned up I still had the small. Removed the starboard battery and found trace amount of liquid fuel in the battery box. Yep, actually fuel.
In a battery box. The same box with all the battery connections and switch. You heard that right. There are (2) Fuel Vent Emission Manifolds.... in the battery boxes, one on each side.

There are a few connections that are double clamped. Of course I checked all those and one was slightly loose but no signs of moisture. Cleaned it all out and ran the boat again yesterday. Still smelling. At this point looks like the Manifold has a slight leak. Getting ready to take it apart again today. I have talked to the builder and I'm working with them on it. They said the entire system is pressure checked before it leaves except one hose that their tester goes into. Makes sense. Checked that one. Good.

So, we might need a new Manifold. OK, no biggie.

But.... what the HECK is ANYTHING that can possibly leak gos vapor into our battery boxes... doing INSIDE a battery box in the first place? Seriously????
Gas vapor is more dangerous that liquid gas. One spark... and boom. Done.

I'm super concerned with this and of course wondering if this is just a Venture series issue or the rest of the line up as well and has anyone else had this issue? NMI says they have never seen the issue. Hmmm.

This is a MAJOR and dangerous design flaw if you ask me. They could build a box outside the battery box to house the Emissions systems.

Thoughts?

 

[DayBreak]

Hello Brats

Been smelling gas in my starboard battery box and at the back of the boat for awhile now and could not find the issue. I did have full tanks vent fuel out the fill inlets and cap, ran down the side of the boat and wrecked the pin striping and silicone seal. So if your tanks are full and it gets hot, they will spill out fuel. Just FYI. Obvious fix for that.

I am thinking you have the E-VALVE FUEL VENT MOISTURE CONTROL MANIFOLD made by Herrington Marine Technologies? There are two check valves in this unit. One allows air to exit out of the fuel vent hose as the boat is being re-fueled or in hot weather when there is fuel expansion. The other check valve seals off the fuel system while your boat is just sitting to not allow moisture from the air to get into your fuel system and yet still allows free air flow while you are running. Check for a kink in the line from the E-Valve to the overboard vent and also the hose going to the fuel fill opening. The factory should have used long enough hoses to avoid kinking.

 

[ssobol]

Hello Brats

Been smelling gas in my starboard battery box and at the back of the boat for awhile now and could not find the issue. I did have full tanks vent fuel out the fill inlets and cap, ran down the side of the boat and wrecked the pin striping and silicone seal. So if your tanks are full and it gets hot, they will spill out fuel. Just FYI. Obvious fix for that.

I am thinking you have the E-VALVE FUEL VENT MOISTURE CONTROL MANIFOLD made by Herrington Marine Technologies? There are two check valves in this unit. One allows air to exit out of the fuel vent hose as the boat is being re-fueled or in hot weather when there is fuel expansion. The other check valve seals off the fuel system while your boat is just sitting to not allow moisture from the air to get into your fuel system and yet still allows free air flow while you are running. Check for a kink in the line from the E-Valve to the overboard vent and also the hose going to the fuel fill opening. The factory should have used long enough hoses to avoid kinking.

IME the factory may use hoses that are too long. This results in more bending in trying to get a too long hose in a too small space. While my problem wasn't vent hoses, I had to replace the fill hoses because the length required excessive bending to get the hoses to fit. This resulted in failures of the filler hoses on the outside of the bends. The replacement hoses I installed are a few inches shorter than the originals.

The other thing to consider is that the more moving parts involved, the more things that can go wrong. In the case of the valves you mention, apparently they allow excess pressure to vent when the tank heats up and they also prevent air from entering the tank to prevent moisture intrusion. That's fine. But it would seem that they might also prevent vent air from entering the tank when the engine is running. The question is how does the valve know the difference negative pressure from ambient cooling and when the engine is sucking gas out of the tank?

If there is something to signal the valve that the engine is running, then that adds complexity (and failure modes).

 

[crowleykirk]

I was also getting a fuel leak at he sending unit and outlet.
Cleaned that up. Tightened screws. So far so good. Still smell a little at the vents. NMI says this is normal. Hmmmm.

We had full tanks on SJI for delivery. We could not get the boat in the water. Very long story. It got very hot. Fuel shaped out the fuel fill caps and I thought that was it.

Moved boat to Mammoth, 7000 feet elevation with full tanks. Hence I believe the reason for the leak. Used boat in Mammoth to break-in. Moved boat to Newport Beach CA. So far no leaks.

Still slight smell at battery boxes. Still investigating. We will be back down to use the boat for a couple months starting in November. It's much improved so I think the tissue is resolved. Not the dealers fault really.

Now dealing with a couple other new boa tissues. I had ordered 50 feet of chain and 250 rode. I got 15 feet of chain and 175 feet of rode. Even though I paid for what I had ordered. Working with them on this now. Again, not major as long as they'll make good on it, which it sounds like they will. Michael at NMI has been great to deal with.

Keep you posted

Thanks for the reply.