To polish or not to polish.....fuel

[billwilletts]

Hey guys - so I closed this week on Sophie, 1981 56MY. She is in NY and I need to get her out of there and down to Wilmington NC to her new home. I have a 20 item punch list to complete before I feel like she is trip-worthy. So she has 500-600 gallons of fuel on board that has been sitting for approx a year and a half. I noticed algae in the bowls at sea trial time. So I can top her off and get a case of Racors and keep an eye on the gauges, or spend $1200 and get the fuel polished. Hmmmm..... what to do?

Incidentally I am leaving Thursday to drive up to NY to do 4 days of maintenance and see how the punch lists goes. Hoping to finish the list in a week or so and try to head south on the 11th after a few shakedown runs. I may be posting some other stuff this weekend if i run into trouble.

 

[davidwigler]

Hey guys - so I closed this week on Sophie, 1981 56MY. She is in NY and I need to get her out of there and down to Wilmington NC to her new home. I have a 20 item punch list to complete before I feel like she is trip-worthy. So she has 500-600 gallons of fuel on board that has been sitting for approx a year and a half. I noticed algae in the bowls at sea trial time. So I can top her off and get a case of Racors and keep an eye on the gauges, or spend $1200 and get the fuel polished. Hmmmm..... what to do?

Incidentally I am leaving Thursday to drive up to NY to do 4 days of maintenance and see how the punch lists goes. Hoping to finish the list in a week or so and try to head south on the 11th after a few shakedown runs. I may be posting some other stuff this weekend if i run into trouble.

Do you plan on running slow or on plane?

 

[billwilletts]

10k ride. Any more and I am pushing water and burning fuel

 

[rsmith]

Run it hard and change the filters when the gauges start to show increased vacuum

IMHO polishing is a joke. The crap settles to the bottom below the fuel pickups unless they remove the tank access plates and suck out the tank from the very bottom the crud will still be in there. Every rancor ends up with strings of algae hanging from the turbine separator it's not an issue

 

[SEVEN]

Give her a good run and get ready to change filters a few times. You will use most if not all the fuel so clean it with filters and not spend the money polishing. Have a great trip.

 

[tomrealest]

From my experience when i bought my boat 15 years ago, I would NOT add a fuel additive. Definitely don't add Biobor.
With 600 gallons on board, I would not refuel until at least the end of the second day.If you start out with bad fuel or suspect fuel, i would NOT top the tanks off every day. I did and I ended up extending the problem. I would try to get the tanks down as low as you safely can, changing the filters before they stop up. Then I would fill the tanks all the way up and repeat the process. i thought I had solved the problem until i hit rough water and had to start the process all over.I would think from NY to NC, you would burn enough fuelt o get things cleeaned unless the tanks are a real mess. Then in NC, the fuel polishing might only be $800.

To use a fuel polisher, he must open the inspection plates on top of the tank.on the presure side on the polisher, there needs to be a gate valve on the end of the hose with a steel pipe, maybe 30 inches long to stick in the tank to blow the gunk off the bottom and sides of the tank. If you are coming through the Chesapeake Bay, I got an excellent polishing job in White Stone, Va.

 

[Looking Glass]

I am in the same boat, so to speak. I recently purchased a 58MY in Ft. Lauderdale and I am bringing her up to Philly next month. She has about 500 gallons in her from a little over a year ago. She ran fine at sea trial, and the 3 times she was run around the local marinas since I bought her.

I plan to run her at 10 knots most of trip. I already have a box of racors on board.

I am not leaving until the end of April. If you run into any problems please post.

 

[racclarkson@gmail.com]

Agree on running and racors. Have some secondary filters, if equipped, and air in case you need to clear a clogged fuel line.

 

[billwilletts]

The fuel guy has a long wand that he uses to suck up whatever he can reach.

 

[rob71]

I learned a lot the first year I owned my boat about dirty fuel issues.
Be prepared to dissemble the lower half of the Racor as the gunk gets caught under the float ball and can shut down an engine. Do this beforehand and you will be ready if necessary on your trip.
Capt. Rob

 

[dottieshusband]

Hey Billwillets, you probably already know this, but besides the Racors, there is a secondary filter on the engine. Given the vintage of your boat, it might be a canister type. They are a pain in the patutti to change, and then the engine is hard to reprime. My boat had been sitting 3 plus years, with 800 gallons in the tank. I brought her from Miami to Tennessee....traffic on I75 was awful.... Anyway, I did have the fuel polished and put in an additive, and 300 gallons of fresh fuel. I put new filters in when I left Miami, and ran on those same filters all the way home.. 2200 miles...varying opinions on fuel polishing, but it certainly won't hurt.

 

[Cricket]

Don't forget to have 1 or 2 five gallon jugs of fuel on board for priming. Also might be a good idea to have some Racor rebuild kits just in case. I never like to run a boat that I don't know very low on fuel until I'm sure about the pick ups. Good luck.

 

[34Hatt]

Guess he missed the NO Commercial posts part

No need for polishing or @ case of filters just the right additive and a few days to let it sit.

I would tell more but don't want to be in trouble for breaking rules here

My 50 year tanks are spotless and I change my filters when I feel guilty about not doing them which is 2-3 years.

 

[Geoff58y]

Don't forget to have 1 or 2 five gallon jugs of fuel on board for priming. Also might be a good idea to have some Racor rebuild kits just in case. I never like to run a boat that I don't know very low on fuel until I'm sure about the pick ups. Good luck.

5x what Cricket says. And know how to change filters on the fly in a hot engine room.

 

[Finalee]

You may also want to pump 5 gallons out of the bottom of each tank. If there is a problem, it is at the bottom. At least you will know after examining what comes out.