Fuel filter head

Goglio704 · **Posted:** Thu May 10, 2007 10:06 pm

Goglio704 wrote:

I finally got around to dissecting my old, leaky fuel heater. Note that one of the connections has been hot and is burnt off...

Click picture for larger view.

I'm bumping this for comment because I suspect it got missed by many since it was the last post of the first page. In my case at least, there is little doubt that overheating caused the leak.

techTim · **Posted:** Fri May 11, 2007 12:12 am

very scary picture.

I have had two separate stumble/limp events about four thousand miles apart, this last one happened to me while towing and three slow pumps on the prime handle till firm seemed to fix it, the first time the wife was driving alone and made it home where I changed out the filter as a precaution.
I am wondering if the fuel filter head will be the next recall. A machined billet aluminum piece like this

http://www.ramcoperformance.com/turbofyner.htm

would be ideal.

till then I am going to rework the two piece unit with an old filter gasket and CAT adapter.

msilbernagel · **Posted:** Fri May 11, 2007 12:40 am

I wonder if it would help to put some resistance in-line to drop the heat being applied... Having the temp sensitive heat source would be nice in the cold weather. In most cases, the first five minutes of operation would probably be sufficient.

Mark
-

techTim wrote:

very scary picture.

I have had two separate stumble/limp events about four thousand miles apart, this last one happened to me while towing and three slow pumps on the prime handle till firm seemed to fix it, the first time the wife was driving alone and made it home where I changed out the filter as a precaution.
I am wondering if the fuel filter head will be the next recall. A machined billet aluminum piece like this

http://www.ramcoperformance.com/turbofyner.htm

would be ideal.

till then I am going to rework the two piece unit with an old filter gasket and CAT adapter.

techTim · **Posted:** Fri May 11, 2007 12:52 am

I had thought about that, but I don't feel comfortable enough with the electrical side of things, give me a calculation that shows what type and size resistor, and maybe....

for now the weekly prime and purge is not a hassle, gives me an excuse to look touch taste and smell the engine compartment.
I am comfortable building and tinkering with the simple kind of electrical components, like an inline automatic ORM dongle, I'm searching junkyards this weekend for a suitable donor female plug.

onthehunt · **Posted:** Fri May 11, 2007 1:24 am

Quote:

I'm bumping this for comment because I suspect it got missed by many since it was the last post of the first page. In my case at least, there is little doubt that overheating caused the leak

You stated that your wife left the key on all night when this happened? I truly hope that is the reason for this failure. Not a pretty sight.

Goglio704 · **Posted:** Fri May 11, 2007 9:23 am

Yes, she left the key on and ran the battery down around this time. I'm pretty sure it was before I found this, but I can't say for sure. What I don't understand is that it didn't set a CEL. The heater circuit was open by the time it got this far. If unplugging the heater will set a CEL, I can't see why this didn't.

I'm not sure whether to blame this totally on the air pocket or not. Given that it failed at a connection, it could be a manufacturing defect.

dgeist · **Posted:** Fri May 11, 2007 10:02 am

msilbernagel wrote:

I wonder if it would help to put some resistance in-line to drop the heat being applied... Having the temp sensitive heat source would be nice in the cold weather. In most cases, the first five minutes of operation would probably be sufficient.

Mark

The heater is the type that's constant-powered and is heat-actuated, i.e. the resistivity goes up as the ambient temp of the fuel goes down and I think it's basically down to 0 at about 85F, thus no longer heating. If that's the case, trying to modify it will only help in the corner case that it's left in a ACC-ON condition with the temperature outside somewhat chilly for hours on end AND have an air pocket. I know it happened to you, Goglio, but short of relocating the heater to the bottom of the filter, where it should have been in the first place, making modifications would probably do more harm than good.

GreasyCRD · **Posted:** Sat Feb 20, 2010 8:52 pm

I did the racor upgrade as per http://liberty.eurekaboy.com/ and had no issues for over a year. That all changed when I recently changed the fuel filter and noticed that the heater power plug ground wire (at the splice) appeared to be corroded/melted. I had used butte connectors and electrical tape to splice the wires and everything worked fine until now. The plastic of the butte connector was just about completely gone and there was a lot of corrosion on the remaining metal insides. It appeared to only happen to the ground wire if I remember correcty. The hot appeared fine. I clipped out the butte connectors and bird caged the wires together and put heat shrink around them this time. I'm thinking either I had a bad connection inside the butte connector or the wire is undersized. I didn't add any of my own wire, I used the oem wire and the pigtail that came with the heater bowl. Any help would be great.

dgeist · **Posted:** Mon Feb 22, 2010 12:02 am

GreasyCRD wrote:

I did the racor upgrade as per http://liberty.eurekaboy.com/ and had no issues for over a year. That all changed when I recently changed the fuel filter and noticed that the heater power plug ground wire (at the splice) appeared to be corroded/melted. I had used butte connectors and electrical tape to splice the wires and everything worked fine until now. The plastic of the butte connector was just about completely gone and there was a lot of corrosion on the remaining metal insides. It appeared to only happen to the ground wire if I remember correcty. The hot appeared fine. I clipped out the butte connectors and bird caged the wires together and put heat shrink around them this time. I'm thinking either I had a bad connection inside the butte connector or the wire is undersized. I didn't add any of my own wire, I used the oem wire and the pigtail that came with the heater bowl. Any help would be great.

You might want to try a stronger connector, possibly pin/socket if you have to have it disconnect. If not, a good solder joint with heat-shrink is far better.

Once things are reconnected, you may want to check to see if the connector is heating or if it's the wire (a simple touch will tell you. The wire shouldn't be noticeably hot to the touch if it's sized correctly for the application. Worst case is you can disconnect the heater. As long as the ambient temps aren't too cold, just having the fuel circulate will bring it up to temp (albeit more slowly) without danger of melting.

Dan

GreasyCRD · **Posted:** Mon Feb 22, 2010 5:34 pm

Unfortunatly disconnecting the heater isn't an option due the the temps here in Alaska althought from what I hear it may be colder in the lower 48. If it happens again I plan to solder the splice for a better connection. Thanks for the reply.

BVCRD · **Posted:** Mon Feb 22, 2010 5:40 pm

GreasyCRD wrote:

Unfortunatly disconnecting the heater isn't an option due the the temps here in Alaska althought from what I hear it may be colder in the lower 48. If it happens again I plan to solder the splice for a better connection. Thanks for the reply.

Yea, you guys can be pretty warm there. More of a climate like Seattle. I was told once by a fellow in Montana that the coldest winter he ever lived through was when he was in Seatle. It's a wet cold. LOL!

Fuel filter head

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