Thursday, June 25, 2020

Leak from Engine's Raw Water Filter

Leak from Engine's Raw Water Filter


During our Father's Day Weekend Cruisette, when we arrived at the Bahia Mar, we realized that the Bilge Pump had run twice and the Bilge had a couple of inches of water.

Peggy is always good at finding leaks, so while I was out chatting to boat buddies, Peggy was hunting down the leak. Turned out it was from the Engine's Raw Water Filter.

When I looked at it, water could be seen dripping out of the clear plastic cup that holds the filter.

I checked it was screwed onto the housing securely, it was, so I closed the Raw Water Thru hull and unscrewed the filter cup.

The cup has a seal and that seal appeared to have a split in it's surface. Upon removing the seal, I noticed that it was way to big for it's location, probably swollen for some reason. It was certainly not going to go back in place without a struggle which would probably worsen the split.

I had installed that new filter in 2018, and had also replaced the AC Raw Water Strainer with the same type of filter, figuring out that if ever the Engine Raw Water filter had an issue, I had a spare that I could steal from the AC unit.

I considered using the AC Raw Water strainer cup and seal to get us back home. After an extensive online search, I could not find a replacement seal, so I ordered two new Filter assemblies, one to fix the current issue and a spare. As the old filter cup was going to be replaced, I decided to replace the Seal with a ring of Silicone Sealant. After cleaning the Filter Cup and making sure it was totally dry, I applied a healthy coat of sealant in the grove where the seal should be. Then I let it cure for 24 hours.
Sunday afternoon an inspection of the silicone showed it was fully cured. I installed, the now repaired, filter cup and we did a test run of the engine. No leaks. WooHoo!

When we got home on Monday, the new filters were waiting on my doorstep.

Life is good.

See you on the water.

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