Fuel every where

Carpediem44DB

Well-Known Member
Aug 18, 2015
3,230
Sanfransico Bay area
Boat Info
2000 Carver 506
2006 44 DB Sedan Bridge
Engines
Volvo TAMD 74 P
A fellow yacht club member just took delivery of a 2006 Meridian 411. Very clean, low hour local boat. He cut no corners, spent over three grand on surveys and then had a well known yard bottom paint and do some general service. Oil and filters were done recently so he did not have them replaced. Today he took it out for a nice run down the river and while out thought he smelled diesel fuel but did not stop to investigate it.
Upon returning to the dock and securing the boat he stuck his head in the engine room and yelled quite the explicative! There was diesel fuel two inches deep throughout the engine room and it was dripping from the engine room ceiling! After letting the engine room cool down I went below and had him start the port engine for just a moment and found the problem. His spin on fuel filer has split at the top bead. Clearly a manufacturing defect. It is a NAPA filter as are all of the spin on filters on his engines. I dont know what the take away is on this. I usually use Fleet Guard filters myself. This year I went with Baldwin filters from our local truck supply. They were not cheapies but I'm pretty sure I would not want NAPA filters. Does anyone really know what true quality difference there is in filter brands?
IMG_2059[589].jpg

The picture is on its side. you can clearly see the crack at the top of the filter. The volume of fuel spewing forth while at idle was frightening. I would have taken a video but thought better of it and was happy to just shut it down.
 
I have some QC background and what you are looking at is 'I would think', a statistical anomaly.
The thing you look at is you have been on the boards for 3 years I've been here for about 6 and back in my younger days I was quite involved in sports car racing and this is the first instance of that I can ever think of hearing about. From your write up, my guess is this is your first as well.

I'd be interested to hear if Frank or Lazy have bumped in to this before.
 
If I'm not mistaken I think Baldwin makes the filters for napa. had this happen once with a Motorcraft oil filter, happened within 500 miles of a oil change. I use Cat filters on our 3116s, Don't know if they are any better, But they do look good on the White motors!!! :)
 
When we had our boat surveyed the Cummins tech shook his head at the NAPA filters my cheapa$$ previous owner used and stated “At least use Fleetguard I’d never use cheap filters on a $70,000 motor”
 
Yikes! Glad I’m spending the extra few bucks for Cat filters.
 
I have seen filter material separated (Fram) and cheap internals (cardboard vs metal), but I have yet to see one split and spew fuel. But then again, a defect is a defect and can happen to anything - even a high end product. I agree with Mike's line of thinking in that it's a rarity.

That said, unless I knew FOR SURE that the "X" brand was as good as, or better, than the engine's manufacturer's brand I would not use the "X" brand. The NAPA Gold line, for example, is made by Wix and is identical. But even here, how much are we really saving? Sometimes it's better to pay a few more bucks and rest easy. :)
 
Many, many, many years ago my wife worked at Wix filters as a summer job during college. She has said repeatedly, they make filters for everyone. She said the assembly line would stop, they would change the paint color and restart the line. That being said, I still go to my local Detroit shop and buy their pretty white filters.
 
Many, many, many years ago my wife worked at Wix filters as a summer job during college. She has said repeatedly, they make filters for everyone. She said the assembly line would stop, they would change the paint color and restart the line. That being said, I still go to my local Detroit shop and buy their pretty white filters.

Same with the 5lb. bags of sugar you buy at the grocery store.
 
I use Wix and NAPA Gold filters on equipment where the engines are visible and I can see a leak. I never use aftermarket filters on anything where I cannot see the engine or underneath it as it is under load or on equipment where I don't want to deal with a failure like on my Caterpillars, the Cummins in my backhoe, or in one of the Lexus cars.

I have seen aftermarket filters fail at seams on the can but only on high performance engines with high volume/pressure oil pumps.....back when I didn't have enough financial sense to avoid those things.......like boating makes financial sense!
 
back in the late 80's i worked at an auto parts store. my assistant manager needed to change his oil so grabbed an AC Delco filter from wal mart. he noticed it looked a little different so came into our store and grabbed one of ours. the wal mart filter was a slightly different shade of blue and the holes in the bottom were different. these are just example numbers because i don't remember exactly now but one had 5 larger holes and the other had 6 smaller holes. also the stickers looked almost identical but one from wal mart said made in china or something and ours said made in the US or something. either way they had 2 different countries listed
 
back in the late 80's i worked at an auto parts store. my assistant manager needed to change his oil so grabbed an AC Delco filter from wal mart. he noticed it looked a little different so came into our store and grabbed one of ours. the wal mart filter was a slightly different shade of blue and the holes in the bottom were different. these are just example numbers because i don't remember exactly now but one had 5 larger holes and the other had 6 smaller holes. also the stickers looked almost identical but one from wal mart said made in china or something and ours said made in the US or something. either way they had 2 different countries listed

This is just like buying a John Deer 36xx lawn tractor from John Deer or buying a John Deer 36xx lawn tractor from a big box store. They may have the same model # on them, but they are 2 completely different animals.
 
This is just like buying a John Deer 36xx lawn tractor from John Deer or buying a John Deer 36xx lawn tractor from a big box store. They may have the same model # on them, but they are 2 completely different animals.
That's a fact! Our John Deere lawn mower is from our local John Deere dealer, and its roughly 20 years old.
We've had very little problems with it, nothing major.
 
I have some QC background and what you are looking at is 'I would think', a statistical anomaly.
The thing you look at is you have been on the boards for 3 years I've been here for about 6 and back in my younger days I was quite involved in sports car racing and this is the first instance of that I can ever think of hearing about. From your write up, my guess is this is your first as well.

I'd be interested to hear if Frank or Lazy have bumped in to this before.
I have an idea your right on that. I too have been wrenching on everything,tractors, boats,airplanes and race cars and don’t recall a filter can failure either. I’ve seen the gasket blow out due to over tightening but not this. It really is disheartening for this chap as here he just picks up his boat after doing everything right, no corners cut and the day before a much anticipated
Weekend cruise and bam! That’s boating though, gotta roll with punches and remember that most of the time it’s just fun owning a boat!
 
A letter NAPA might get you a response as they probably do not want news to go out to public IE facebook.
 
I feel for the poor guy trying to clean that ER. An old Tiara docked next to me a few weeks ago. When I was downwind, the smell of raw diesel was so bad that I had to walk away. I don't know what was going on with that boat, but the smell in that Meridian would be tough to get rid of, and tough to live with.
 
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This thread should one that pops up in the "diesel vs gas" debate threads. Imagine splitting the casing on a spin-on fuel filter on a gasser while underway. The results would likely have been far different...yuck.
 
This thread should one that pops up in the "diesel vs gas" debate threads. Imagine splitting the casing on a spin-on fuel filter on a gasser while underway. The results would likely have been far different...yuck.

Someone locally brought a florida salt boat up to lake ontario last year. They had a bunch of work done to get it ready but neglected to check the CF modules and fuel supply lines and fittings (496 I/Os on a big formula)

First run out to Lake Ontario they stalled. He opened the hatch and what had to be 50+ gallons of gas was in the bilge. I didn't see the carnage, but people said the CF module basically blew up from corrosion and the fuel fittings came apart at the seams. Fuel was running right out of the supply line into the boat. They all jumped in the water and swam away from the boat. It got towed in, fixed, and sold the next week. Probably a rarity and likely the result of neglect and a wet salty bilge for years but still scary.

I'm considering a bilge fume detector, especially now with a little one on board. And it makes me want to look at diesel boats for my next upgrade, even if we don't really "need" them.
 

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