You can a mess of wires in the above pic. Some are mine but most are from the previous owners. Each set of Filter Bosses has six wires, a blue, a yellow, a red, a black, and a red and a black set that run from the switch to the actuator. Since I installed two units, that meant twelve wires, including four pairs of red and blacks that I couldn't mix up. When I drilled holes to pull the wires through bulkheads and cabinets, I drilled port and starboard holes for the port and starboard Filter Bosses. I also put blue tape labels on the red and black wires so I knew which were for the switch and which were for the actuators. I finally finished all the connections and threw the switch.
They lit up. I ran to the engine room and the Filter Bosses were lit up too. I ran back upstairs and threw the switches, and than ran back down to the engine room, and yes, the levers were flipped from Filter 1 to Filter 2 on each. They worked perfectly! Yes, that, my friend, is a Victory Beer.
All of my labeling and careful cutting and crimping paid off (by the way, get yourself a nice pair of racheting crimpers. Expensive, but money well spent).
Time to get the filters operational. The Filter Boss has a built in fuel pump, but the filters wouldn't prime, so I bought five gallons of diesel at the fuel dock and filled the four filters. That did it, and in no time the pumps were humming and filling full of.... water.
Un-friggin'-believable. We have about 300 gallons of fuel in our 800 gallon tanks. The idea was to get from Connecticut to New York and then New Jersey where we would fill up where the price of diesel is much less expensive, $3.75 a gallon compared to $4.35. We'd save $300 on the fill up. But those of you who have been following this blog know that we've been here over two weeks, and the days have been warm and the nights very cool. That means condensation. Diesel fuel is lighter than water and floats on top. The water is at the bottom of the tank, and the pick-up tubes pull from the bottom. There must be a lot of water down there.
The Filter Boss has a built in fuel polishing system, and after running it for a couple of hours and draining water from the filter into a jerry can, I pulled five gallons out. The port filter is now OK, but the starboard one is still filling with water. Must be because the starboard pick up tube is lower in the tank. Today I'm going to open the tank's access port and use the old fuel lines and fuel pumps to pump from the bottom of the tank, through an absorbent pad and then right into the bilge. The pad will keep any oil and fuel out, hopefully. Once the water is out, I'll run the Filter Bosses all day in fuel polishing mode (for my landlubber friends, the pump picks up fuel from the tank, runs it through the filter and then returns it to the tank, cleansing it of crud. I don't know why it's called polishing. Must be one of those nautical things that make no sense, like the rope on a sailboat that pulls in the sails being called sheets). The filters are only 10 micron, so if there's much dirt floating in there, they'll clog up pretty fast. My replacement filters are 30 micron.
We were going to leave Atlantic Highlands today, but now it looks like the earliest we can leave is tomorrow. I have a lot of confidence that these Filter Bosses are going to work out great. Although they're very pricey, I'm very pleased with them. And I'm pleased with myself for getting them installed and saving myself several thousands of dollars.
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