Money well spent?

[Sailmale]

For whatever reason, the previous owners of my boat installed two in-line fuel filters on my boat''s Yanmar 12 HP diesel engine. I''ve had the boat several seasons and have never noticed any problems as a result of these dual filters.

An engine mechanic, however, wants to eliminate one filter and reconfigure the fuel line by shortening its run to the engine.

His reasoning is primarily based on safety, i.e, that in a situation where I need all the power that the engine can generate -- such as trying to motor into strong storm winds -- the dual filters might restrict the fuel flow to the engine, and therefore, result in less power.

Would appreciate hearing opinions on this matter.

BTW, I''ve often thought that my 28'' sailboat is somewhat underpowered...its top speed while motoring is somewhere around 3.7 kph.

[DuaneIsing]

Sailmale,

I''ll offer some comments, and hope that the real experts will weigh in if I''m off the mark, at all.

Are you sure your two filters aren''t performing different functions? Perhaps the first one is a water separator and the second is a fine particulate filter. If so, they would both be required.

If both filters are identical, having them in series does seem odd. A setup which many tout is to put two filters in parallel with appropriate valving. If one should clog and restrict the fuel flow, the other (presumably clean) filter can be switched in quickly.

Duane

[hamiam]

I have now and have always had dual inline fuel filters on my boats with inboards. Typically the first filters out the larger particles and the second the finer ones. I would guess that your gph (gallon per hour) rate is a number less than 1 and the capacity on your filters many, many times that. Sounds strange to me.