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Need advice on electric fuel lift pump

Frank Langer

1984 Ericson 30+, Nanaimo, BC
Guy,

The Facet Purolator Gold Pro Performance Solid State pump that I ordered recently apparently comes with a 1/8 - 27 INT thread. I don't know how this differs from an NPT thread or what kind of fitting I'll need to make the right connection to the fuel hose. Any advice?

Frank
 

stbdtack

Member III
Kragen sells this facet pump for around $40. Ive got 2 on each of my boats for the engines and gensets. Plastic body wont rust and never had a failure. Also I install the pumps closer to the tank so that the Racors and fuel lines are pressurized rather than having fuel sucked through them. My thought is I'd rather have a fuel leak to clean up than air leaking into the system and killing my engine when I need it. Also the pump can be used to refill the Racor when I change filters or drain off contaminated fuel from the bowl.
 

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Maine Sail

Member III
Also I install the pumps closer to the tank so that the Racors and fuel lines are pressurized rather than having fuel sucked through them. My thought is I'd rather have a fuel leak to clean up than air leaking into the system and killing my engine when I need it. .

But may instead get water at your injectors and that may also kill it. The Racor filters preferred installation is on the vacuum side of the pump.

Just an FYI as to what Racor says regarding pump location.

In regards to vacuum side installation:
"IDEAL vacuum side installation."

In regards to pressure side installation:
"NOT ideal - pumps emulsify water hindering filter performance."

Racor capitalized the words IDEAL and NOT. Installing the pump on the pressure side can certainly make priming easier but according to Parker/Racor you can "hinder" filter performance.




Guy,

The Facet Purolator Gold Pro Performance Solid State pump that I ordered recently apparently comes with a 1/8 - 27 INT thread. I don't know how this differs from an NPT thread or what kind of fitting I'll need to make the right connection to the fuel hose. Any advice?

Frank

Frank,

INT is internal thread or female threaded. They are NPT female fittings. Threads are sometimes referred to as INT or EXT but mostly when referring to taps & dies.
 
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Guy Stevens

Moderator
Moderator
Push me pull you...

I am pretty sure they are internal (Female) NPt fittings, A screwy way of referring to them.

The issue with the electric lift pumps for me has always been one of bleeding the air out of the system. I like others here place my pump on tank side of my Racor filters. The ability to prime the system with the filters being in pressure is so much easier than other solutions that I have tried. I know what Racor recommends about the water separator system. I have noticed that they still take out plenty of water. I had a conversation with someone at Racor once that said our engines on small sail boats use so little fuel that the water is going to fall out into the bowl on the bottom anyway, and that with engines using more fuel (a lot more) it made a difference because of how fast the fuel came through the unit. Now he could have been talking out his hat however my experience backs up what I heard.

A little water as from condensation in a fuel tank gets removed just fine on all the boats I have been on when the filter is on the pressure side of the electric lift pump. I recommend this setup to most of my clients as it gives you the ability to bleed the engine quickly and easily.

I also recommend that you buy a set of brake line wrenches that fit your engine bleed points, and that they are color coded and stowed in the engine compartment with the engine. The bleed points should also be painted in colors to match the colors on the wrenches. This takes a lot of the problems out of bleeding when you need to have the engine working.

Guy
 

stbdtack

Member III
I suppose this could be a problem but as Guy said small diesels have a very slow fuel flow and Im thinking if it actually does emulsify the the water/fuel it will have time to separate again. Also an emulsion containing water is still heavier than fuel so it would stay on the bottom in the bowl where the water would be anyway. And in 23 years and 4000 hours on a Perkins 62hp and 5 years 1000 hours on a Universal 5432 Ive never had an issue.

On the other hand I have 2 friends who changed their Racor filters and failed to seat the rubber gasket in the lid (Racor 500). The engine ran just fine on the little reserve level above the Racor outlet fitting but the level slowly dropped until only air was being pulled into the downstream pump to the engine. One of the friends was returning to his slip when the engine quit. Fortunately he has a good rubber bumper on his dock so there was only "pride damage":rolleyes:
Having the fuel pushed into the Racor would have shown a leak at the gasket or at least kept the filter full until discovered.

Anyway thanks for bringing that detail up. Always happy to hear every point of view!
 

mherrcat

Contributing Partner
Earlier in the thread Maine Sail posted a link to the Facet pump specs. How important is it to have anti-siphon and/or positive shutoff?
 

Sven

Seglare
Are all the pumps mentioned in this discussion passive flow-through so they can be used as bleed pumps or polishing pumps but left turned off when not needed for those two uses ?

IOW, is that something one needs to look out for ?

We'll also be installing a vacuum gauge to monitor the filter status and while we might just mount it to replace the t-handle on the Racor 500 we might like to mount it so we could measure the vacuum before and after the filter with a switchable manifold. If it is mounted as a replacement for the t-handle you couldn't distinguish the difference between a clogged filter and a clogged intake in the tank. Maybe that isn't much of an issue ?

(hope the second question doesn't cause too much thread drift but I'm happy to split it off if it does).



-Sven
 
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