Racor 1000 filter change interval?

Lots of discussion about the fuel filter system, but I don't find any discussions about the filter change frequency. I have a vacuum gauge on my Racor 1000 with the "telltale", and since my last filter change 13 months and 422 hours ago, it has never gone above 2 in. Hg. But when I changed it just now, the filter was BLACK!

I had intended to wait until the vaccuum gauge started reaching at least 5 inches when running, but 13 months seemed long enough, and I'm glad I changed it - the look of that filter scares me.

How many hours of engine time (or calendar time?) do you use as your fuel filter change interval?

FYI, I always polish new fuel through a 2 micron Racor 1000 into my "day tank", and the 10 micron filter I just changed pulls from the day tank and provides fuel to the on-engine filter.

(I'd prefer to stay away from a discussion of my choice of filters, please.)

If the vacuum gauge was showing no restrictions, that filter is doing it’s job. Using the gauge is a good way to decide.

That is a lot of crud. Unless the tanks have a lowest-level drain which you haven’t been regularly draining, it is time to have your tanks professionally cleaned.

A few questions and comments:

How many gallons of fuel have you burned through that filter?
How old is the fuel in the boat's tanks?
Where did you fuel up the last few times?
What micron rating?

Looks like the filter is doing what it is supposed to. I've seen a lot worse after about 1/2 your hours.

Change interval: When the engine stops due to a choked filter.....Just say'n!!

OK I just had too. I would agree with others. I change mine on an annual basis. I also remove the valve at the bottom and flush the housing out and take a small brush to remove all the crap.

The vacuum gauge reading will vary by boat depending on the number of engines and their type drawing thru the primary filter. Engines with high volume pumps can show 2 or more inches on a new filter.

Filtration efficiency increases as the filter loads up, since fewer larger particles will pass through. I think the answers that if the vacuum is still within acceptable limits, then the filter is ok is correct.

However, if that were my filter after that many hours, I would be a bit concerned about the accumulation of crud in the tank. I polish my bulk tanks before transferring to a staging tank, which in turn is filtered before transferring to the day tank. Because the bulk tank is being polished, the equivalent engine hours would be in the thousands, I presume. But I never see that much crud, in fact, they are usually only slightly discolored. I change the filters annually just for drill. If you've got the pump to transfer fuel to a day tank, could you not also rig that up to polish the bulk tanks?

In the total cost of boating, racor filters are incredibly expensive. I can see where many would wait till the engine becomes RPM limited due to lack of fuel flow. As for myself, I find there are a list of items that make me very happy to change once a year, before it's necessary. All fuel filters for both engines and generators are on that list. Considering how bad the consequences of a plug filter could be, the cost of changing out perfectly good ones annually seems insignificant.

Ted

Hi,

I have asked this Parker / Racor

"Type in your question here: Hey, I live here in Finland and diesel is very clean and I am now driven more than 600 hours 3 years Racor 75/900 10mic filter and the filter is still visually clean and vacuum gauge needle moves only just a little bit so I have not changed the filter and it all works very same fleet guard 2mic last filter for my Cummins QSB. Do you see a technical problem / risk of using your filter for several years if the filter remains clean? Regards Ari
Sent on: 2 November, 2018
Thank you!"

And answers

"No, there is no problem. I have a diesel pick up and I have been running the same filter for 3 years now. I am going to change this year just because.



Best regards,


Racor Products Technical Service"


NBs

O C Diver said:

In the total cost of boating, racor filters are incredibly expensive. I can see where many would wait till the engine becomes RPM limited due to lack of fuel flow. As for myself, I find there are a list of items that make me very happy to change once a year, before it's necessary. All fuel filters for both engines and generators are on that list. Considering how bad the consequences of a plug filter could be, the cost of changing out perfectly good ones annually seems insignificant.

Ted

Click to expand...

Do you mean incredibly inexpensive? I agree that changing them annually is insignificant. Heck, my oil filters are about $50 and I change them annually with the oil change.

The recommendation, as I understand it, is to change when vacuum becomes unacceptable, or once a year, whichever comes first. It's much like oil changes, and many, many other things on any machine where there is both an operation time (hours/miles/km) trigger, and a calendar days trigger for replacement.


On the Racor filters, I understand that the water repellent coating on the filters degrades over time, and that running for longer reduces the water separation performance.


I agree with O C Diver that annual changes are really cheap peace of mind, and the path to trouble free boating

The black deposits do not look like the fuel was bad , just getting old.

As diesel ages it clumps , going back to its crude state.

The black chunks are called asphaltene and filter out easily.
Asphaltene - Wikipedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asphaltene

Comodave said:

Do you mean incredibly inexpensive? I agree that changing them annually is insignificant. Heck, my oil filters are about $50 and I change them annually with the oil change.

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Yes, I was being sarcastic when I said they were expensive.

Ted

O C Diver said:

Yes, I was being sarcastic when I said they were expensive.

Ted

Click to expand...

There is no place for sarcasm on this forum Ted[emoji8]

O C Diver said:

In the total cost of boating, racor filters are incredibly expensive. I can see where many would wait till the engine becomes RPM limited due to lack of fuel flow. As for myself, I find there are a list of items that make me very happy to change once a year, before it's necessary. All fuel filters for both engines and generators are on that list. Considering how bad the consequences of a plug filter could be, the cost of changing out perfectly good ones annually seems insignificant.

Ted

Click to expand...

Thought you had a single... or are you referring to the genny, too?

Mine typically look like this after a season (80- 100 hours).

Why waste your time changing that filter. It’s still new. Filters are cheap but changing them too soon is just a pointless, messy waste of time. Just think of all the other fun stuff you could be doing?

Why waste the money/effort/etc if you have a vacuum gauge? What is the point of the gauge if you change filters annually? If the gauge doesn’t register any restriction, why do you change out a good filter?

“Weird strange customs that boatowners believe.”

Black slime = microbial growth (not ashphaltene)

BrianSmith said:

Lots of discussion about the fuel filter system, but I don't find any discussions about the filter change frequency. I have a vacuum gauge on my Racor 1000 with the "telltale", and since my last filter change 13 months and 422 hours ago, it has never gone above 2 in. Hg. But when I changed it just now, the filter was BLACK!

I had intended to wait until the vaccuum gauge started reaching at least 5 inches when running, but 13 months seemed long enough, and I'm glad I changed it - the look of that filter scares me.

How many hours of engine time (or calendar time?) do you use as your fuel filter change interval?

FYI, I always polish new fuel through a 2 micron Racor 1000 into my "day tank", and the 10 micron filter I just changed pulls from the day tank and provides fuel to the on-engine filter.

Click to expand...

A few thoughts.

1) You can't use either engine hours or calendar time to tell you when the filter needs changing. What you need to know is how many gallons went through the filter and how much 'junk' was in those gallons. Depending on how you run, 422 engine hours over 13 months might be 844 gallons or it might be 8,440 gallons (at 2GPH and 20GPH respectively). Likewise, if your filter is still visually clean after 12 months, no reason to change it.

2) I think you are probably wasting time and effort by running new fuel through the 2 micron 'polishing' before adding to your tanks. Most of what you are seeing is microbial biofouling, and this is growing inside your tanks, not as a result of contaminated fuel. This is a common problem that is particularly prevalent in high-humidity climates and where tanks are not normally kept full. Humidity in the air condenses on the inside surfaces of the tanks and the condensate water feeds the growth of the microbes. There is a good white paper on this at http://www.hpcdfuel.com/pdf/DOWfuel_training.pdf

3) You might already know this, but the vacuum gauge reading is meaningless unless the engine is under a significant load. When the engine is not sucking hard enough to create vacuum (like when it's idling...even at a very fast idle), the engine is simply not pulling enough fuel to 'test' the filter, and so the vacuum guage can't show you how plugged the filter is.

The first thing I would recommend is be sure you are adding a good anti-microbial biocide to your fuel, and replenish it periodically.

I would not be too alarmed about the 'black' appearance of your filter, especially as it's been 13 months since it was changed. Check it again after you've run about 50 gallons through it. If you are seeing a lot of slime after 50 gallons, then you probably have a lot of microbial growth in your fuel, and you'll want to polish the fuel in the tanks.


Does this picture look familiar?

jleonard said:

Mine typically look like this after a season (80- 100 hours).

Click to expand...

Yeah but you cheat with a 3 stage filter setup

Xsbank said:

Why waste your time changing that filter. It’s still new. Filters are cheap but changing them too soon is just a pointless, messy waste of time. Just think of all the other fun stuff you could be doing?

W”

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Because I can. LOL

Riverguy said:

3) You might already know this, but the vacuum gauge reading is meaningless unless the engine is under a significant load. When the engine is not sucking hard enough to create vacuum (like when it's idling...even at a very fast idle), the engine is simply not pulling enough fuel to 'test' the filter, and so the vacuum guage can't show you how plugged the filter is.

Click to expand...

Well, no. While it is true that with a clean filter the vacuum only goes up when you suck a lot of fuel, it also goes up when the filter is clogged. That's the whole point of those gauges.

Xsbank said:

Why waste your time changing that filter. It’s still new. Filters are cheap but changing them too soon is just a pointless, messy waste of time. Just think of all the other fun stuff you could be doing?

Why waste the money/effort/etc if you have a vacuum gauge? What is the point of the gauge if you change filters annually? If the gauge doesn’t register any restriction, why do you change out a good filter?

“Weird strange customs that boatowners believe.”

Click to expand...

You put an awful lot of faith in a cheap vacuum gauge.

The other part about changing them annually is that even though the engine hasn't quit, you can see how close you are to a plugged filter. Maybe you got a bad load of fuel and it's time to decide if you're going to be going through some filters before the crud is out of the tank.

Now I fully realize that you could pull the filter, check it, and put it back in. If I'm going to the trouble of pulling the filter, for $10 or less in bulk, I'm putting a new one in. When it comes to filters, I'm happy to spend money.

Ted

Seevee said:

Thought you had a single... or are you referring to the genny, too?

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Only have one propulsion engine in this boat. The plural was more of a generality for others.

Ted

Vacuum gauge is useless under no-load conditions

Delfin said:

Well, no. While it is true that with a clean filter the vacuum only goes up when you suck a lot of fuel, it also goes up when the filter is clogged. That's the whole point of those gauges.

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Well, yes. Whether the OP's filter is clean or dirty, that vacuum gauge is useless when the engine is under no-load.

Think it through. A Racor 1000 is a 180gph filter. At idle or no-load off idle, the engine in question will be drawing less than 1gph (about 0.5% of the Racor's flow capacity).

I said that any time this engine is running under no-load, the vacuum gauge will be useless. This is because, under no-load, if the vacuum gauge starts increasing, it means you should have changed the filter a loooonnnngggg time ago.

I know this seems counter-intuitive. Maybe it will help if I say it differently.

If you begin showing increasing vacuum on a 180gph filter, when you are only pulling 0.8gph through the filter, it means the filter is TOTALLY plugged. It means the filter was WAY overdue for changing.

That is why the vacuum gauge is useless when there is no load on the engine. If you wait until you see vacuum increasing at no-load, it is long past time that you should have changed the filter.

If you read the thread from the beginning, you will see this is exactly what happened here.

The whole gist of OP's question is:

Q. "why didn't my vacuum gauge tell me that my filter was totally plugged?"

A. Because your vacuum gauge readings were taken when the engine was not sufficiently loaded, and under these conditions, your vacuum gauge is useless.

Yes, I am belaboring the point, because this is yet another very common misconception that causes significant safety concerns. It is a misconception that is common even among very experienced boaters!

Why is it a safety concern? If one is only looking at their filter's vacuum gauge when the engine is under no load, they will have no idea when the filter becomes significantly plugged. They will then be surprised when they need power from the engine (outrunning a storm or navigating a tricky pass) and it's not there.

Riverguy said:

Well, yes. Whether the OP's filter is clean or dirty, that vacuum gauge is useless when the engine is under no-load.

Think it through. A Racor 1000 is a 180gph filter. At idle or no-load off idle, the engine in question will be drawing less than 1gph (about 0.5% of the Racor's flow capacity).

I said that any time this engine is running under no-load, the vacuum gauge will be useless. This is because, under no-load, if the vacuum gauge starts increasing, it means you should have changed the filter a loooonnnngggg time ago.

I know this seems counter-intuitive. Maybe it will help if I say it differently.

If you begin showing increasing vacuum on a 180gph filter, when you are only pulling 0.8gph through the filter, it means the filter is TOTALLY plugged. It means the filter was WAY overdue for changing.

That is why the vacuum gauge is useless when there is no load on the engine. If you wait until you see vacuum increasing at no-load, it is long past time that you should have changed the filter.

If you read the thread from the beginning, you will see this is exactly what happened here.

The whole gist of OP's question is:

Q. "why didn't my vacuum gauge tell me that my filter was totally plugged?"

A. Because your vacuum gauge readings were taken when the engine was not sufficiently loaded, and under these conditions, your vacuum gauge is useless.

Yes, I am belaboring the point, because this is yet another very common misconception that causes significant safety concerns. It is a misconception that is common even among very experienced boaters!

Why is it a safety concern? If one is only looking at their filter's vacuum gauge when the engine is under no load, they will have no idea when the filter becomes significantly plugged. They will then be surprised when they need power from the engine (outrunning a storm or navigating a tricky pass) and it's not there.

Click to expand...

You appear to be the only one who thinks the OP's reading of the vacuum gauge took place under no load. He doesn't appear to say that, but perhaps I missed it. The gauges work just fine when used as directed, like most equipment in widespread use does.

From Racor:

Monitoring the black needle to ensure it does not reach this setting has been difficult as the operator must observe the needle while the engine is running at service speed (the gauge is not always mounted in a location that is easy to monitor).

Riverguy said:

The whole gist of OP's question is:

Q. "why didn't my vacuum gauge tell me that my filter was totally plugged?"

A. Because your vacuum gauge readings were taken when the engine was not sufficiently loaded, and under these conditions, your vacuum gauge is useless.

Click to expand...

Sorry, I don't really want to get involved in this because you both seem to know what you are talking about, but approaching it with different semantics. However, the OP did mention he had a "telltale" I assume that is the sweep gauge that records the highest reading encountered. So as long as he ran the engine up, it doesn't matter what the RPM's were at the time he looked at the gauge.

Bkay said:

Sorry, However, the OP did mention he had a "telltale" I assume that is the sweep gauge that records the highest reading encountered. So as long as he ran the engine up, it doesn't matter what the RPM's were at the time he looked at the gauge.

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That's a good point assuming he ran the engines up under load. This is an interesting thread for me as I have Duel Racor 1000s & have yet to see any significant rise of the "telltale." Not many hours of running since the Duel Racor installation, however. (Health issues.)

Yes Codger2, I have never seen my needle move much, either. I'm in the camp that changes annually anyway because I believe the membrane of the filter deteriorates over time so it wears out whether used or not.

I admit that I don't know that applies to RACOR filters for a fact. But I do know Yanmar states it is true for their secondary filters.

Bkay said:

Sorry, I don't really want to get involved in this because you both seem to know what you are talking about, but approaching it with different semantics. However, the OP did mention he had a "telltale" I assume that is the sweep gauge that records the highest reading encountered. So as long as he ran the engine up, it doesn't matter what the RPM's were at the time he looked at the gauge.

Click to expand...

That would be the "new and improved" gauge Racor came out with that includes a trailing needle showing max pressure. They say they added this since when the engine is running at load the needles can be bouncing around, or the gauge may be mounted in an inconvenient place to read when the engine is running at normal loading. In any case the gauges work, and the lesson here, I think, is that these filters can get pretty nasty looking and still be doing their job.

FWIW, Bob Senter from Lugger/Northern Lights, states that filters should be changed at a minimum of every year because they do deteriorate, even when not being used, that includes both primary and secondary.

Second that about the filters aging. Seen a few over a few years old where the grommet around center post was loose, plastic must have degraded. This allows fuel (and crud) to bypass.

I change mine at least once a year (900 Racor single) and before a long trip. Mine looks like the OP, black gunk, probably asphaltenes on it , but no slime. I can look at the bottom of my tanks and they are shiny aluminum, no visible crud. I think the asphaltenes precipitate out with time.

I am fortunate that my engine has a lot of return flow so fuel gets polished just by running. Engines with little return flow don't get this advantage.

I don't use a vacuum gauge. I think most are cheaply made and seen several that did not work. Either gauge in hand showed high vac (impossible) or close off supply valve and gauge did not rise even though suction flow blocked (note this trick does not work on dual racors with single selector valve). Also found one gauge that leaked under suction and caused an engine stall and related "cap'n crunch".

I can tell if my filter is getting cloggy as when I power up with dirty filter, engine rpms take a bit to build, then comes up. New filter and all is good.