Grand Banks Fuel System Maintenance

Aside from the obvious maintenance of changing fuel filters as outlined in your engine’s scheduled maintenance program, there are other items which will require periodic maintenance. Most of these fall into the category of containment or delivery. By containment, I am referring to fuel tanks and the storage of fuel. We have done a lot of fuel tank replacements here in the yard. There were a couple of main problems that caused this problem. The first is water leaking in from the deck fill and pooling on top of the tank. The other is water sitting in the tanks causing the tanks to rust from the inside out. In addition to the potential for diesel leaking, the rust inside of the tanks will continually clog fuel filters causing poor performance of your engines or too frequent filter changes. There is also the possibility of taking on bad fuel during fueling. The best cure for this problem is to have your fuel polished. We have our own set up for this which triple filters the fuel while looping continuously. The time we run it for depends on the size of the tanks but our minimum is 8 hours. We have also installed fuel polishing systems on boats so the owner can regularly polish the fuel. This is especially useful for those who are not burning a lot of fuel which means fuel will sit for long periods in the tanks. Delivery problems are usually hose or filter related. Whenever you find fuel in the boat somewhere other than the tank or engine, you should find out where it is coming from. The most common problems are bad hose or loose fittings. If the fuel is in the engine pan it narrows the problem down. You will probably need to watch the engine run to see where the fuel is coming from. If it is in the bilge, however, you will probably have a harder time finding the leak. Many older boats have copper tubing which is easily damaged. We prefer Aeroquip, Gates or Parker fuel hose which in addition to being a high quality hose, has a braid of high tensile steel inside for protection.