Water seperator/filter question

N

No Worries

New member
SO I am in the process of doing a tune up on my boat. I changed the fuel filters in the engines and the water separator/filter. It is a honda filter/separator. Well I must have done something wrong. I cant get the gas to flow now. I see there is a vent screw on the water/separator filter. What step did I miss here? I disconnected the fuel lines when I was replacing the fuel filter. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance

Doug
 
There's a little check valve in the connector that needs to be pushed down to get the fuel to flow. You've got to push it in with a tool or something while you pump the bulb...

Charlie
 
Or you can disconnect the hose before the connector at the engine (assuming that there is a conector at the engine, which is removiable.

If we have a problem like this, we hook up our electric fuel pump. Once when I changed out a filter connector, I had used teflon tape on the threads (rated for gasoline and diesel) and some how I had gotten a bit of the tape over the lumen of the fitting!--so check it out if pumping or pulling the fuel thru doesn't work properly...(I am not familiar with your specific filter, since I use Racor filters).
 
Thanks mucho.... when you say in the connector, you mean the fuel hose itself?? Its a snap on coupling for the fuel hoses, so push the little ball in there in a bit and then pump the bulb to get the fuel pumping then reconnect to the filter??

Its the honda water separator.... I do see a vent screw that has an allen head on it, I wounder if I open that up and pump it until fuel comes in if that will work....

thanks again...

Doug
 
I have the problem you are describing all the time with my Mercury. All I do is as Charlie said disconnect the fuel line from the engine push the little ball in with a phillips head and pump the squeeze ball til I get a good flow of fuel. Happens every time I run a tank empty.
 
Okay I have bleed the lines as you described above. Was having some issues and figured out that I had the o-ring and rubber gasket in the backasswards position (honda water separator), which was causing an air leak. so I put them in the correct position and I got one line to pull fuel but not the other. Makes no sense to me, switched them around and still same deal. I have dual outboards.... and recommendations?

Thanks in advance and have a good Tday.... Doug
 
No Worries":9j09bxt9 said:
Okay I have bleed the lines as you described above. Was having some issues and figured out that I had the o-ring and rubber gasket in the backasswards position (honda water separator), which was causing an air leak. so I put them in the correct position and I got one line to pull fuel but not the other. Makes no sense to me, switched them around and still same deal. I have dual outboards.... and recommendations?

Thanks in advance and have a good Tday.... Doug
Click to expand...

Pump fuel through (with the squeeze bulb) 1 line at a time with the fuel line to the other motor disconnected? :mrgreen: :beer
 
dogon dory":efb5umq3 said:
It's probably just vapor locked. Disconnect the hose from the engine, stick the end in a can or something and pump the bulb until fuel comes out. Then reconnect it and you should be good to go.
Click to expand...

Vapor lock requires heat to Vaporize the fuel :wink:
Might have a air lock though?
I feel like a wise ass today :mrgreen: :beer
 
Last spring I was putting the fuel filters back on the boat, and couldn't get fuel to flow. Turns out there was a check valve at the top of the fuel tank that was stuck shut. When I finally figured out where the problem was, I unscrewed the check valve, washed it in WD40, and got a little crud out. After that, it worked just fine.
 
Are you supposed to prime, or fill the new filters with fuel? I wondered about this when I changed mine, didn't have any flow problems installing them dry, but I have always wondered if I should have primed them.
 
The check valve that fishbob found, is the anti siphon valve, which is required on gasoline tanks. It looks like a pipe thread to hose barb fitting, but has the ball valve and a spring in it. One of these on my Tom Cat was defective when the boat was new, so I carry spares aboard.

I just use the primer bulb to pull fuel thru the filter. I have always filled diesel filters up with fuel, but not gas.
 
Maybe I'm missing something on the basics of the problem first stated, but if you're pumping the fuel bulb (with gas tank valve selector in the proper position, gas in the tank, and the bulb getting and remaining hard), but gas is not filling the Racor bowl after changing the filter element, it's because you have air in the fuel delivery system, AND fuel in the carb bowls. If the carb bowls have a full load of fuel, their floats are in the "up" position, and neither air nor gas is going to flow through the bulb, no matter how long, nor how hard you pump. Therefore, no fuel is going to be drawn out of the gas tank, and no fuel is going to fill the Racor.

You can fix this either of two ways. First, as already suggested, separate the fuel hose at the motor, and use an electrical cable strap or something else to depress the ball valve in the connector. Then, with the ball depressed, the connector elevated, and the bulb in the vertical position, fuel and air can flow freely out the end of the hose as you pump the bulb, and you will draw fuel from the tank, displace the air in the system, and fill the Racor bowl. But, if you've already pumped the bulb, watch out, because the hose is under pressure, and you're likely to get a face full of gas when you depress the ball. And, since the fuel delivery system is now "open", watch out for fuel coming out the end of the hose, which is a rather crude way of telling when you've pumped the bulb enough.

Or, you can simply drain one of the carburator bowls, causing that carb's float to lower, and it's fill valve to open. Then, pump the bulb. The carb's valve will stay open, so long as you're just passing air, since there's nothing for the float to float in. Once the air is purged through the carb, and gas is flowing through the bulb and into the carb's bowl, the float will raise, closing the carb's inlet valve. At that point, you should have all fuel, and no air, in the Racor. If not, you pumped the bulb too fast. If that's the case, drain the carb bowl again, and go slower pumping. If you watch the Racor bowl while you're pumping, it's pretty easy to see what's happening. Since all you need is for the carb's valve to open slightly, you don't really have to drain it's bowl all the way. Try removing just a little fuel, and see if that's enough to open the carb's float valve. It's pretty east to tell if you've removed enough fuel, if you keep a hand on the fuel bulb. Once the carb's float valve opens, the bulb will go soft as the pressure in the fuel deivery system is reduced through the carb. At that point, you're set to pump the bulb.
 
A couple of comments:

Point the arrow on the primer bulb "up" to the sky, and then squeeze the bulb to pump. The check valves in the primer bulb are gravity activated.

Get a spare fitting (the one that the fuel hose clips onto at the motor) for the end of the gas line. Then snap the fitting into the connector on the end of the fuel hose and pump away. This lets the fuel and air flow out the end of the hose without spray.

This same fitting lets you 'pump' (by squeezing the bulb) gas from the boat tank into a dingy motor or other small tank.
 
I have another question for the brats about the fuel filter.

I change my Racor fuel filter / seperator every season but this time I noticed some particles of sediment in the bowl. Shouldn't thet have been caught by the filter or does the fuel go to the filter after the bowl? :?

Cheers, :beer
Tom
 
Tom-

The fuel goes down into the bottom of the bowl, then up into the filter, and out of the top casting at the outlet hose fitting.

This way most of the water and large solid particles are trapped in the bowl without going up into the filter, and small water droplets can condense together and fall back into the bowl to be drained off the bottom.

Joe. :teeth :thup
 
I thought the input flow from the fuel tank was through the smaller perimeter filter holes, through the filter media and out the center post. The particles in the bowl were not stopped by the filter media or if the fuel hose is bad and breaking down then hose debris can fall into the bowl
 
Found this discussion on " The Hull Truth" Forum.

"The seperator is really two devices in one, it separates fuel from water and it filters the fuel. It can and will also filter water, if it gets the chance. If you were to cut your sepearator in half up and down to get a look at it all it would look a lot like a roll of toilet paper sitting on top of a coffee cup. Water enters the seperator down the middle and drops down the hole in the center of the filter - the part that looks like a roll of toilet paper. The cup is at the bottom and any water in the fuel finds it way to the bottom, because its heavier, and stays there. As the canister fills up the water remains at the bottom and the filter element fills with the gas that is floating on top of the water. The gas passes through the filter element, which captures particles, and exits on the outside of the element, the outside of the part that looks like the roll of paper. After the fuel passes through the filter element it is channeled back to the top where it is passed to the outlet port. So all of the water is captured in the bottom and the fuel rises inside the element, passes through the filtering medium, and then exits to a fitting that goes on to the engine. Obviously passing fuel throgh a filter imposes some restriction to its flow, but not much unless the filter is operating at 100% efficiency (is completely jammed up). The problem is that the water in the bottom isn't going anywhere and sooner or later it will fill up the bowl at the bottom (or simply an empty chamber inthe bottom if its a one-piece filter element) and then water will be up at a level that allows it to pass through the filter element. If that happens the filter will be more than happy to let water pass through to the engine. Keep that in mind, because a lot of folks don't understand it and will tell you wrong - a fuel seperator/filter will be more than happy to allow water to get to your engine if that bowl fills up. When this happens there might be a little bit of sputtering for about 10 seconds, and then the engine will simply die. This, a water-filled seperator, is not something that will happen intermitently for a couple of outings, it will kill the engine in a hurry. Fortunately it really doesn't do any harm, and in fact it will clean your plugs like they have never been cleaned before (water makes a great decarb juice) and all you have to do is dump the chamber, pump it full of agas again, and get the engine restarted to go on your way. The best way to treat all of this is to simply put a valve on the bottom of the bowl. We did that years ago to both of our Racors and I drain some fuel (with its water) before and after every single trip. I keep a small glass in the boat just for that purpose. You can spot water in the gas instantly in a glass, and you'd have to be blind to miss it, there is absoltuly no question at all if the stuff is in there.

Thom"
 
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