Installing the first Filter Boss, and Found a Problem

Sometimes I like to set goals for myself. Yesterday's goal was to do absolutely nothing. I'm proud to say I achieved my goal.

Today was a different story.  The first Filter Boss arrived today.  Pam and I were walking the dogs by the harbor master's office when I saw the UPS truck arrive.  I gave Ruby to Pam and beat feet for the office, snagged the package and rushed down to the boat where I unpacked it on the foredeck.   What a beautiful piece of machinery.  It kinda made me tingle all over.

I thought I'd leave the two old Racors in place and use them to polish fuel by running the lines back to the tanks instead of the engines, but I needed to remove this shelving unit to mount the two Filter Bosses.  Once I got looking at it, though, I decided to also remove the old Racors (at the bottom of the photo).   I'll move them to the other side of the engine room.  

Upon removing the old filters and the lines, I noticed that the NPT fittings were too small.   They're 5/16".  The Filter Boss uses 3/8" NPT fittings to connect the fuel lines.  This is good because a quick check of the Ford Lehman manual also says to use 3/8" fuel lines to the engines.   So I jumped on my bike and rode into town to buy 3/8" fuel lines and fittings.  Back at the boat, I was removing the old lines when I got to the valve where the fuel line connects to the tank itself.  There was a reducer that narrowed the line from 1/2" down to  a puny 1/4"!  I removed the two reducers, one for each fuel line and valve, and found them full of crud.   One was almost totally blocked.   I went back to the hardware store and bought two reducers down to the proper 3/8" size.

I never thought the filters looked to be so dirty as to stop the engines, so it's possible that all the engine failures we've had were due to the 1/4" bottleneck at those reducers.    And this is one of the nice things about doing these jobs yourself..