Giles and Paula's Great Retirement Adventure
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Would have been my thought also with the fuel cap not venting properly creating a vacuum as the fuel was used…the only other thing I can think of is a obstruction in the line (as you mentioned with the cigarette butt). Maybe one of the inline fuel filter/water separators is clogged or partially obstructed.
Does it seem to run great for the first bit and then get worse as the day goes on? I’ll check with my brother in laws (farmers) and see if they come up with any good ideas. We’ve all chased diesel gremlins before on the tractors and sometimes the answer is staring you in the face, and sometimes….
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There is a breather pipe, so there should be no need to crack the filler cap. Our current assumption is that it is blocked. It works fine until the tanks are at about 30-35% full, then the port tank gives up. It does not degrade, it falls off a fucking cliff......
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@Giles Doesn’t sound like it’s anything between the tank, fuel line, water separator, fuel filter, and the fuel rail and your theory of venting sound’s right.
If it was the fuel pump or fuel rail, the problem would manifest itself much earlier than the 30/35 percent fill.
Have you tried running the tank with the fuel cap removed on the port tank? If the vent is causing the issue, then no filler cap on the port tank would ensure that it’s getting enough air (as long as it’s semi protected to keep seawater out).
"I don't give a shit what anyone else is doing, we will do what is best for us and our customers" - Giles P. :)
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...and a off the wall thought...I wonder if the pickup wasn't properly placed in the tank and is only 2/3 of the way where it should be. Maybe you're running out of fuel because of it's placement.
Edit: The more I think about this, the more I think that this might be your issue especially for the way you describe it falling off.
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Not that I'm an expert on fuel tanks, but I did do similar work with water tanks with pumps. There should be 2 tanks with a line between the 2 that would equalize the 2 tanks. Sometimes something as simple as the filter on the one tank would become clogged or challenged and would mess up the one tank.
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@ROman We have been running them separately. But we can, with a flick of a valve join them. One of the things I will do when we are home is install a fuel pump and diesel polisher on that pipe, so that I can shunt the fuel from one tank to the other cleaning it with each pass. We had that system on PILGRIM and I am pretty (read, fucking)( surprised we do not have it as standard on SAKURA....
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Could the fuel feed and return line be round the wrong way. Based upon the drawing...if the feed line is coming from the top of the tank as the fuel gets below the pipe, thats when the airlock/vacum is created?
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What I know for certain, is that it runs OK between 100% and 65%. Just going to make sure we don't go below that until Sasga engineers have been and looked....
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The weather is bad and predicted to get worse through the day and night. It would be foolhardy to continue and put SAKURA through a lot of stress (we are slamming into big seas), so we are running back to Brest. The weather across the channel is forecast to be awful for a week or two. so we will get home without SAKURA, and come pick her up as soon as we can.
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now that’s not a happy ending
