Water in Fuel

[cww]

My newly-rebuilt engine started smoking, and was still under warranty, so I had the guys back out. They said it was the injectors. There was water in the racor, which he tested and was salt water. Which obviously explains why my injectors are already f*ked. The other engine has no issues, and that racor has no water in it.

I recently ran offshore coming back from thanksgiving, but otherwise 98% of my boating is in the Saint Johns River, where the boat is much bigger than anything the river can throw at it. I don't understand for the life of me how the hell I have saltwater in a fuel tank like this. I know it didn't come from the marina, I bought the fuel from the same place for both tanks, and the other one doesn't have this issue.

What should I be looking for here?

 

[Captain Ralph]

Leaking fuel cooler. This is the only place fuel and salt water meet inside the boat.

Outside the box;
I had a bad deck fuel fill connection that leaked deck water into my aft tank a while back. That drove me crazy.

I have to ask, How do you know it's salt water? Brackish?
Heavy salt does make it into the Ortega at times.
How full was the Racor with water? A lil on the bottom should not pass.

And lastly, injectors do go bad. New/refurb does not mean to much these days.

 

[cww]

Leaking fuel cooler. This is the only place fuel and salt water meet inside the boat.

Outside the box;
I had a bad deck fuel fill connection that leaked deck water into my aft tank a while back. That drove me crazy.

I have to ask, How do you know it's salt water? Brackish?
Heavy salt does make it into the Ortega at times.
How full was the Racor with water? A lil on the bottom should not pass.

And lastly, injectors do go bad. New/refurb does not mean to much these days.

Oh I'm an idiot, I forgot about the fuel cooler. One of those went bad on my last boat too, about 2015'ish, and I wound up with a tank full of salt water and algae. I can't believe I forgot about that already. I just called them and told them to replace it.

 

[Captain Ralph]

Just to make sure something out of the box is not messing with you, like it did me, have that fuel cooler checked.

 

[cww]

Just to make sure something out of the box is not messing with you, like it did me, have that fuel cooler checked.

You were spot-on. The fuel cooler on that engine had a pinhole in it, which was sending saltwater into the tank down the return line. I replaced it with a new one. The mechanics said I need to change my engine zincs more often and this wouldn't happen. I was like dude, you just charged me $70k for rebuilds that got finished up like 6 months ago, you could've thrown in a couple new zincs! Anyway, ordered the zincs and will hit those this weekend. Thank you for the advice.

 

[scottinsydney]

I am now wondering if the fuel cooler has anodes. Don't think so.

Or is an anodes just on the raw water pump two on the heat exchanger?

 

[cww]

I am now wondering if the fuel cooler has anodes. Don't think so.

Or is an anodes just on the raw water pump two on the heat exchanger?

There's 3 of them, one in the water pump housing and the other two up by the heat exchanger. These apparently provide protection for the whole system, not just where the anode is at. Not sure of the science behind it.