A recent article in a Boating Magazine called to question what I always thought I knew about fuel filters. It claimed that you should use the same micron size fuel filter in both the Primary and Secondary fuel filters. This is news to me, the boat builder delivered our boat with 30 micron filters in the Racers, and Cummins shipped their engines with 2 micron fuel filters. I have always been happy with this, and so have my engines. When I change the filters, I can see that I'm trapping the bad stuff when I change the filters, I have vacuum gauges mounted on each Racor and can tell how dirty the filters are and if I do get an engine problem I can eliminate the fuel filters as the source just by looking at the vacuum gauges. The logic of stepped filtering is to stop the contaminates in a sequential manor. Using the same micron filter size on both Primary and Secondary seems to make the no sense. What am I missing? Racor R120P 30 Micron Filter, Racor R120T 10 Micron Filter, Racor R120S 2 Micron Filter, FF5285 Fuel Filter, (2 micron) Regards, Capt. James Clausen, MV Summer School "At sea a fellow comes out. Salt water is like wine, in that respect." - Herman Melville Boating website: http://www.maxumowners.org/MVSS.html

IMHO, what is missing is recognition that it makes more sense to catch the bad stuff in a filter that is not attached to the engine, and that is far easier to change. I was glad to see the article in PASSAGEMAKER, since the rationale happened to agree with a position I had already formulated for myself. What doesn't make sense to me, and never has, is the idea of stepped filters. One of the original justifications for stepped filters, as I understand it, was a belief that too fine a filter off the engine would "starve" the engine of fuel. But the current 2 micron filters pass fuel as easy as 30 micron filters, so that reason no longer applies, if it ever did. --chuck Tusen Takk, KK42-152 On Mon, 27 Dec 2004 17:40:50 EST, BillEGates@aol.com <BillEGates@aol.com> wrote: <snip> > The logic of stepped filtering is to stop the contaminates in a sequential > manor. Using the same micron filter size on both Primary and Secondary seems to > make the no sense. What am I missing? <snip> -- The only maxim of a free government ought to be to trust no man living with power to endanger the public liberty. - John Adams

What should be considered are valves which would allow your first Racors to be alternated when one gunks-up. If you are on a long trip in rough weather, it would be good to throw two valves and switch to a clean filter. One aside -I learned that If you are installing a Floscan fuel consumption gauge, they want no smaller than 10 micron filters upstream from them. Since I have a case of 2 microns, I'll try to get by until they are used up. Ron Rogers Willard 40 AIRBORNE Departing Annapolis Tuesday December 28th bound for New Bern, NC

Which would you rather do underway? Change your racors (cool) or get close to a hot engine. Filters tend to plug up just when you need the power. Vacuum gage monitoring is best way to minimize this but dirt in the tank is hard to predict. On Dec 27, 2004, at 4:40 PM, BillEGates@aol.com wrote: > A recent article in a Boating Magazine called to question what I always > thought I knew about fuel filters. It claimed that you should use the > same micron > size fuel filter in both the Primary and Secondary fuel filters. > > This is news to me, the boat builder delivered our boat with 30 micron > filters in the Racers, and Cummins shipped their engines with 2 micron > fuel filters. > I have always been happy with this, and so have my engines. When I > change the > filters, I can see that I'm trapping the bad stuff when I change the > filters, > I have vacuum gauges mounted on each Racor and can tell how dirty the > filters > are and if I do get an engine problem I can eliminate the fuel filters > as the > source just by looking at the vacuum gauges. > > The logic of stepped filtering is to stop the contaminates in a > sequential > manor. Using the same micron filter size on both Primary and Secondary > seems to > make the no sense. What am I missing? > > Racor R120P 30 Micron Filter, > Racor R120T 10 Micron Filter, > Racor R120S 2 Micron Filter, > FF5285 Fuel Filter, (2 micron) > > Regards, > Capt. James Clausen, MV Summer School > > "At sea a fellow comes out. > Salt water is like wine, in that respect." > - Herman Melville > > Boating website: > http://www.maxumowners.org/MVSS.html > _______________________________________________ > http://lists.samurai.com/mailman/listinfo/trawlers-and-trawlering > > To Unsubscribe send email to > trawlers-and-trawlering-request@lists.samurai.com > Include the word Unsubscribe (and nothing else) in the subject or body > of the message. > > Trawlers and Trawlering, T and T, TrawlersandTrawlering, and TandT are > trademarks of Water World International. Unauthorized use is > prohibited. >