Cleaned Racor Bowl, 9/30/2007
AGAIN. I just did this in August (see post below). We logged about 33 hours since then, which seems not unreasonable, but I'd still like to reduce or eliminate the buildup of sludge.
This time, I tried just draining the gunk from the bowl. I only managed to get a tiny bit to come out before the drain hole clogged, so I had to disassemble it again. At least that's getting easier each time. I now keep a box of disposable rubber gloves on board, and I just put a quart-size ziploc around the whole filter/bowl assembly, remove it, take it apart, clean the bowl, reassemble, top it off with fresh diesel, and reinstall. The ziploc catches the old diesel, and I just dispose of it at the marina waste oil collection.
It seems I really need to address this problem. The fuel tank may be dirty, or I might be taking on dirty fuel at the fuel pump. I ordered a Racor fuel funnel (RFF15C), which handles 12-15 gallons-per-minute and filters to 74 microns, so I plan to filter all diesel as it enters the tank from now on. I would assume that if the supply is clean, eventually the filters will clean out most of the gunk from the tank.
