Fuel system

The old fuel filter on Isosceles was barely up to scratch and the fuel pipes were well past their sell by date. All of this was in desperate need of replacement, and so with a new engine being fitted I decided to redesign the whole fuel setup.

The original design for a twin filter system

Ideally I wanted a Racor 500 filter and water separator, however these are not cheap pieces of equipment. To go one step further I really wanted a twin fuel filter installation. This allows for a backup should one filter become clogged. You can buy dual filter setups but they are ridiculously, extortionately overpriced items. At the time I was looking at a Racor 500 twin filter setup that was 4 times the price of 2 individual filters, retailing at over £1000.

Alternative filters

After a bit of searching I came across the Pioneer 500 filters. These come directly from China, and use the same filter elements as the Racor 500 series. Of course when you buy things like this directly from abroad you take a risk, but as it cost just 10% of the Racor original I thought I'd buy one to have a look. I need not have worried, when it arrived it was a solid piece of kit, and the engineers fitting the engine confirmed they had fitted a few of them without any issues.

I then ordered a second filter so that I can have switchable fuel source in case I need to change a filter while under way. You can guarantee that this would happen at the least opportune time. The nightmare scenario is when the wind is blowing you onto an unfriendly shore, and the engine stops because the fuel filter is blocked. Being able to switch immediately to a second filter could be a life saver. A couple of fuel taps and some pipe fittings and I had the parts to switch between fuel filters.

Fitted fuel filters, the fuel taps circled in red dictate which filter is in use

This whole system had cost around £100 in total, including both filters, taps, pipes and fittings, compared to the £1000 system that does the same job.

Multifunction system

At this point I nearly had a setup for a basic fuel polisher. At its most basic level I can run a fuel filter when the engine isn't running, pulling fuel out through one of the filters, through a 12v fuel pump, and then feeding it into the fuel return from the engine.

Unfortunately to really get a fuel polisher to work properly I am going to need to modify the fuel tank. What I'd like to do is fit a second fuel pickup and a second fuel return, I plan to get these fitted into the removable fuel tank inspection hatch. This would allow a dedicated pickup for each filter and a fuel return for the engine and for the fuel polisher.

The proposed multi function fuel filter / polisher setup

Of course Covid-19 has continued to slow life down, as with other jobs I will have to come back to this. The fuel filter change over system works a dream, when I start working on the galley area I will be able to get access to the top of the fuel tank, and then I will see about modifying the access hatch.