Narrowly Avoided Disaster

[heysteve]

I arrived on anchor a few days ago without any issues. Today I was goofing around in the engine room and happened to notice the fuel feed to the secondary filter looked askew. Upon closer inspection, I could see the nipple connecting the vacuum gauge to the filter holder was cracked all the way through!

How the engine ran I don't know... perhaps the massive amount of pipe tape prevented an air gap. But if that fuel line had come off, the hose would have dropped down and potentially siphoned out a significant amount of diesel into the bilge. What a disaster that would have been... no engine and a massive diesel spill.

I feel like I really dodged a bullet which got me thinking of boating in general and the people who stay with it. There are outliers, but most people I've met over the years are really nice, generally optimists and certainly problem solvers. And most have great sympathy for other boaters and their problems as who among us hasn't had to deal with embarrassing, stressful or other generally challenging situations.

 

[slowgoesit]

Your experience reinforces the need to regularly take a look around your boat, particularly in the engine room, physically tracing coolant lines, fuel lines, etc evaluating the overall cleanliness of the mechanical aspects of the boat.

I know people who's pre-start checks consist of (tongue in cheek) opening up the salon hatch down into the ER and stating loudly "Now DON'T make me come down there!"

Perhaps the other extreme (and not necessarily wrong) is to have a comprehensive checklist you use to check all the blocks before starting the engine.

- Raw water thru hull open, "check"
- fuel valves open, "check", etc.

Not necessarily a bad thing. I'm somewhere in between.

 

[rslifkin]

Your experience reinforces the need to regularly take a look around your boat, particularly in the engine room, physically tracing coolant lines, fuel lines, etc evaluating the overall cleanliness of the mechanical aspects of the boat.

I know people who's pre-start checks consist of (tongue in cheek) opening up the salon hatch down into the ER and stating loudly "Now DON'T make me come down there!"

Perhaps the other extreme (and not necessarily wrong) is to have a comprehensive checklist you use to check all the blocks before starting the engine.

- Raw water thru hull open, "check"
- fuel valves open, "check", etc.

Not necessarily a bad thing. I'm somewhere in between.

Along those lines, I apply a procedural safety for my operations. If I close a raw water intake or anything else that makes an engine either inop or unsafe to start, I trip the ignition breaker for that engine. Then if one of us for some reason tries to start it, nothing will happen (no power to the key switch). That forces pulling the engine hatch to reach down to the breaker at minimum, but generally would prompt a look around and realizing why the breaker was off.

 

[Juliet 15]

It looks like that fitting got knocked at some point. If it's bronze, could dissimilar metal corrosion have occurred where it's mated to the steel or aluminum housing?
I've found one of the most valuable aspects of doing virtually all my own mtx is that I become intimately acquainted with every system, tho they may be only peripheral to what I'm servicing. It also gives me (numerous!) opportunities to notice things just like this. Glad you discovered it, and glad you avoided the potential outcomes. Did you have a replacement fitting on hand to replace the broken one? How was it getting the threaded portion out of the female end of the mount?

 

[heysteve]

Did you have a replacement fitting on hand to replace the broken one? How was it getting the threaded portion out of the female end of the mount?

I feel fortunate that I could just remove the T-fitting with the vacuum gauge and attach the 90 directly to the filter housing. Vacuum gauge wasn't needed anyway as I added gauges to the top of the dual Racor 900's. It was also nice that everything was easy to reach.

I extracted the remaining fitting using a large EZ-out. Sometimes it seems like carrying a lot of tools is a waste of space until you run into a situation like this. I'm in a remote location so no mechanic is going to save me

 

[Shrew]

Can you use teflon tape for oil and gas?? I always use the yellow stuff. With my luck it's all the same and just color coded, like jerry cans.

 

[jleonard]

A hydraulic nipple would have been stronger
I use white Teflon tape on all my fuel fittings, leave the outside 2 threads bare like you would for hydraulic fittings.

 

[TowLou]

I wonder may be a good idea to add a anti siphon valve to the supply off the fuel tank to prevent such spill to happen.

Ill add Gasolia makes good non hardening pipe dope for fuel lines. Use it in my field and holds up over time.

 

[C lectric]

I sometimes use TFE tape on lines OTHER than fuel or hydraulic lines.
I no longer use the white tape, only the yellow or orangy stuff. THey are both thicker, stronger and are approved for gasses, oil , fuels. The white tape is not approved, is far thinner so weaker and shreds easily. The other tapes don't shred readily.
I still carry them though.



For the most part I no longer use tape at all. I won't use any tape on anything remotely hydraulic or fuel supply related. Those shredded bits can plug valves or any small orifice causing malfunctions. A good quality pipe sealer, Rector seal #5 or their similar products or another mfgr. similar product. Lots of them around.


HeySteve,
Better yet is steel hydraulic fittings in pipe sizes. THey are available in a wide range of sizes and types. Far stronger than black iron which is what your photo looks like.

 

[Max1]

This is a great thread to remind everyone of the risks that can be mitigated by inspection. I have to say, I have learned a lot on my first year operating a trawler and find this forum indispensable.

Though I have the mindset of "inspect and prevent", I don't know everything.
This thread alone has opened my eyes to additional areas to review and check. Thanks!

By the same token, I would like to share my experience last summer on our final "two-week long excursion" that we did at the end of last summer (our first season on a trawler). This was to be our first long-distance outing, all trips prior were essentially two to three day "sea trials" as we were slowly learning the ins and outs of handling a large boat, as well as the operating characteristics of this particular boat.

I prided myself in inspecting and improving A LOT in this boat this first year, and by the end of the season we felt confident we could do a two week outing.
All was fine until about the third day out when under cruise, I thought I smelled diesel. I popped the hatch and found the fuel line had a small crack where it was attached to the Racor filter, almost similar to the OP. The fuel pump was spraying fuel into the hold!!!

Cause: Vibration failure of the fuel line where it was attached to the brass barb. The previous owner had it run up to the filter with a hard turn where it was connected. After a shut-down and clean up, I cut off the fuel line and re-attached it, making sure it had a straight run to the barb on the Racor filter. All was fine. It took a day or two for the smell of diesel fumes to clear from the engine compartment.

Two days later we were cruising and again I smelled diesel. Another peek into the engine compartment revealed one injector line had a pinhole crack in it. Not being experienced with diesel injector lines, I tried to stop the leak to no avail. Worse, while I was fiddling with the injector line, it completely snapped off in my hand!! Now what? I was worried we were screwed, miles from our home marina. After about 3 minutes of "what are we going to do now??", I realized if I could run a fuel line from the broken injector line to say, a plastic bottle, I could run the engine on 5 cylinders instead of the normal 6. I hooked it up and to my relief it worked. I kept the engine under 1200RPM and limped home in 2 days. I promptly ordered a complete set of injector pipes from American Diesel.

 

[Dwk]

Cheers! Great critical problem solution.

 

[KnotYet]

Max1, I assume you meant to say you ordered injector pipes, not injectors!

 

[Max1]

Max1, I assume you meant to say you ordered injector pipes, not injectors!

Yes! Thanks for the correction. I revised my thread accordingly

 

[heysteve]

Better yet is steel hydraulic fittings in pipe sizes. THey are available in a wide range of sizes and types. Far stronger than black iron which is what your photo looks like.

The existing fittings look like the normal brass fuel line fittings. I'll see if I can track down some hydraulic fittings when I'm back in La Paz. I also like to use pipe dope with TFE on fuel fittings and try to avoid tape.

 

[O C Diver]

Brass is often chosen for its corrosion resistance, but it's a poor choice in a vibration environment where your hanging mass off an engine. Once went to look at a Schucker trawler that had a seized Cummins 4BT engine. The owner had used a brass nipple to connect a brass tee to have a mechanical oil pressure sensor and a low oil pressure alarm out of the same hole. The engine vibration eventually snapped the brass nipple off at the engine block. All the oil was pumped out the sender hole and the engine seized up. In some situations it's better to go with steel, galvanized steel or stainless steel.

Ted

 

[Sababa]

I had a similar “but for the grace of G-d” moment when I noticed that one of my fuel lines was rubbing up against the sharp edge of the engine mounting frame, which had worn through a good part of the outer casing. I had by this time been to Alaska and back without noticing the problem despite being pretty reliable in doing an engine room check before starting every day. I think about what could have happened if that line had blown when I was entering Lisanski Strait from the ocean with rollers breaking on the reefs on either side.

Of course, my pre-start check now includes looking at all the hoses to make sure there are no obvious signs of wear. But I also make a point of just hanging out in my engine room and laying my hands on random stuff from time to time. Does something wiggle that shouldn’t wiggle? Is that a film of some liquid I’m feeling? Is that cap tightened down? These are all things I was able to address with easy fixes before a catastrophic failure occurred that I would have missed with any reasonable pre-start checklist. There is no substitute for poking around and messing with things.

 

[Blissboat]

But I also make a point of just hanging out in my engine room and laying my hands on random stuff from time to time. Does something wiggle that shouldn’t wiggle? Is that a film of some liquid I’m feeling? Is that cap tightened down? These are all things I was able to address with easy fixes before a catastrophic failure occurred that I would have missed with any reasonable pre-start checklist. There is no substitute for poking around and messing with things.

Amen to that. More than a few times just randomly grabbing a pipe, hose or bracket is how I have stumbled across an invisible but impending failure. It's akin to a business practice, "management by walking around," popularized back in the '80s by the management consultant Tom Peters. Better to discover a problem in the making rather than wait for the crisis to announce itself.

 

[Jeff F]

I feel like I really dodged a bullet which got me thinking of boating in general and the people who stay with it.

Heh. Most long time boaters have dodged a bullet or two

Great comments. I'm not personally overly concerned over fuel leaks for safety/operations, but flooding the bilge is potentially very bad. Good catch.

 

[Crux]

It looks like that fitting got knocked at some point. If it's bronze, could dissimilar metal corrosion have occurred where it's mated to the steel or aluminum housing?
I've found one of the most valuable aspects of doing virtually all my own mtx is that I become intimately acquainted with every system, tho they may be only peripheral to what I'm servicing. It also gives me (numerous!) opportunities to notice things just like this. Glad you discovered it, and glad you avoided the potential outcomes. Did you have a replacement fitting on hand to replace the broken one? How was it getting the threaded portion out of the female end of the mount?

Perhaps it got knocked by a hatch handling incident? If in harm's way, now may be a good time to move gauge.

 

[MYTraveler]

Your experience reinforces the need to regularly take a look around your boat, particularly in the engine room, physically tracing coolant lines, fuel line

Some people, my brother for example, have an absolute gift for inspecting machinery and finding problems waiting to happen. It has always been very instructive for me to observe his process. He is kind of like a drug dog sniffing around a car and alerting over the unseen. As if he literally smells the problem. Over the years, I have learned quite a lot from watching him. Part of it seems to be that everywhere he looks the top question in his mind is "what could go wrong", then he filters that with experience to focus on the most likely. Plenty of people have that skill, to varying degrees. I always enjoy bringing them into my engine room for a look around, and to hear their thoughts.

 

[ancora]

An ancillary benefit of doing your own work is finding something else that needs fixing.

 

[SteveK]

An ancillary benefit of doing your own work is finding something else that needs fixing.

Indeed, awareness avoids downtime on the hard.

And if there is a slow spell, fix something until it is broken.

 

[Steve DAntonio]

You did didge a bullet.

This looks like an add on, rather OEM. I'm not sure why you would have a vacuum gauge on the engine at the secondary fuel filter, which is what this looks like. Plumbing between the lift pump and the secondary filter is almost always steel, as it's under pressure, albeit low. Plumbing from the primary filter to the lift pump is hose, but from the lift pump onward is almost always steel pipe. This looks as if it is plumbed into the inlet at the secondary filter, where you might use a pressure, rather than vacuum gauge. That would register restriction at the secondary filter, vacuum gauges can only be used before the primary filter. Is the black hose supplying fuel from the lift pump?

The leverage on these fittings is pretty substantial, that too concerns me, they should be supported or a hose should be used between the filter housing and these plumbing fittings rather than directly plumbing to the housing. Steel or stainless may be better, but it still should not be a long, unsupported appendage like this, which again makes me think it's not CAT OEM.

As others have noted, Teflon tape should not be used with fuel, fuel-resistant pipe thread dope is better.

More here https://stevedmarineconsulting.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/fuelplumbing.pdf

Again, you were lucky.

 

[ronobrien]

I arrived on anchor a few days ago without any issues. Today I was goofing around in the engine room and happened to notice the fuel feed to the secondary filter looked askew. Upon closer inspection, I could see the nipple connecting the vacuum gauge to the filter holder was cracked all the way through!

How the engine ran I don't know... perhaps the massive amount of pipe tape prevented an air gap. But if that fuel line had come off, the hose would have dropped down and potentially siphoned out a significant amount of diesel into the bilge. What a disaster that would have been... no engine and a massive diesel spill.

I feel like I really dodged a bullet which got me thinking of boating in general and the people who stay with it. There are outliers, but most people I've met over the years are really nice, generally optimists and certainly problem solvers. And most have great sympathy for other boaters and their problems as who among us hasn't had to deal with embarrassing, stressful or other generally challenging situations.

You have a lot of cumulative weight there with the fittings, hose and gauge. The vibrations will over time fatigue the metal and lead to cracking. My suggestion is to install a hose where the gauge is and connect the gauge via the hose to take some of that weight off of the fittings. Spreading out the arrangement to reduce the number (and length) of fittings all attached at one point would help also.

 

[C lectric]

I am just going to make a comment about brass.
THere are brasses and then there are brasses for fittings. Actually lots of brasses.

THere are extruded brass fittings which have nice flat, straight sides, square corners and sharp angles. DO NOT USE THIS ON THE ENGINE. It is much more vibration breaking prone than the following which is:

FORGED brass fittings are far stronger and more vibration resistant. It can be a pain to install at times since the sides are often not flat so it is tougher to grip. THere are usually small wrenching pads on the side to help but sometimes, depending upon access they can be tougher to wrench.

However its strength more than makes up for it.

Regardless, I now only use steel hydraulic fittings including having gone back years later and taken even my FORGED brass fittings out of service. I will point out that even after 20 or so years and several thousands of hours on the actual engine none of them showed any problems.

 

[catalinajack]

This is a great thread to remind everyone of the risks that can be mitigated by inspection. I have to say, I have learned a lot on my first year operating a trawler and find this forum indispensable.

Though I have the mindset of "inspect and prevent", I don't know everything.
This thread alone has opened my eyes to additional areas to review and check. Thanks!

By the same token, I would like to share my experience last summer on our final "two-week long excursion" that we did at the end of last summer (our first season on a trawler). This was to be our first long-distance outing, all trips prior were essentially two to three day "sea trials" as we were slowly learning the ins and outs of handling a large boat, as well as the operating characteristics of this particular boat.

I prided myself in inspecting and improving A LOT in this boat this first year, and by the end of the season we felt confident we could do a two week outing.
All was fine until about the third day out when under cruise, I thought I smelled diesel. I popped the hatch and found the fuel line had a small crack where it was attached to the Racor filter, almost similar to the OP. The fuel pump was spraying fuel into the hold!!!

Cause: Vibration failure of the fuel line where it was attached to the brass barb. The previous owner had it run up to the filter with a hard turn where it was connected. After a shut-down and clean up, I cut off the fuel line and re-attached it, making sure it had a straight run to the barb on the Racor filter. All was fine. It took a day or two for the smell of diesel fumes to clear from the engine compartment.

Two days later we were cruising and again I smelled diesel. Another peek into the engine compartment revealed one injector line had a pinhole crack in it. Not being experienced with diesel injector lines, I tried to stop the leak to no avail. Worse, while I was fiddling with the injector line, it completely snapped off in my hand!! Now what? I was worried we were screwed, miles from our home marina. After about 3 minutes of "what are we going to do now??", I realized if I could run a fuel line from the broken injector line to say, a plastic bottle, I could run the engine on 5 cylinders instead of the normal 6. I hooked it up and to my relief it worked. I kept the engine under 1200RPM and limped home in 2 days. I promptly ordered a complete set of injector pipes from American Diesel.

During the third day of ownership, an injector hard pipe cracked on one of my Lehman 120s. The boat came to me with a full set of six new lines. Ran on one engine to safety, tied up for the night, changed out the broken pipe the next day, and off we went. I immediately ordered a replacement from American Diesel.

 

[Davil1]

off topic to the diesel problem, only marginally related to how do you keep track of "impending disasters"

visual inspection of the engine components helps.

Recently found a layer of black dust covering the engine, thought was soot from diesel exhaust.

BELT loose.

Took me a few hours to clean up the black stuff, re tighten the belt and now is part of my "checking things list"

never ends!!!!

 

[psneeld]

A loose belt is hardly an impending disaster. As seen black dust and or noise usually is a dead giveaway early on. So the trick is to learn what can easily happen but not be detected early.

I once had a 120 Lehman belt separate while in the middle of the Chesapeake headed for Baltimore. Knew it was just a 10 minute or so job, so I shut down, slipped on a new belt and continued. Even if it broke, not necessarily a disaster if you have a ready spare and can fix it.

The best thing I did in my engine room was install a camera that saw the face of the Lehman. I could watch for the belt misbehaving, and with the drip pan tilted towards the bow, and tiny leak was immediately noted in that sparkling white pan. It saved me at least a half dozen times noting leaks before they became major.

 

[rslifkin]

Belts and leak checks have always been on my pre-start checklist. My engines have a sectioned off bilge area that doesn't drain under them, so it serves as a drip tray. I keep oil pads under the engines partly so the few small oil seeps they have don't make a mess and partly so any leaks don't run and it's easy to tell where a drip came from (as it'll show on the pad directly below the leak).

The general pre-start check consists of checking all fluids (oil, coolant, trans fluid, steering fluid) to see if there's an unexpected change in level. Then check belt tension and look under each engine to confirm no puddles of coolant, oil, etc. Followed by a visual once-over of the engines, then it's up to the helm, power up the fume detector, turn on the blowers, unplug shore power (if connected). Once the fume detector has warmed up, start the first engine, confirm oil pressure and water flow, the start the second and confirm pressure / flow. 1 - 2 minutes at high idle for warmup while removing dock lines, then once we're down to the last couple of lines, throttle back, confirm stable idle on both engines, then drop the last lines and go.

I run through the full pre-start check for the engines and/or generator before the first startup of any day (I consider the day's check to expire at midnight even if I did the checks but didn't start the engines). I typically don't re-do the full check on subsequent starts during the day, however, unless we've run for more than a couple hours before shutting down and restarting.

 

[Hippocampus]

Learning a new to you boat is a voyage in its self. Going through the experience now. Things I’ve found helpful.

Pull out a manual. As you read it cover to cover match up what you read with what you see I take along a label maker and label everything. Repeat with all of them. I have things with no manuals. Gave me the opportunity to download them.

Always be present if anyone works on your boat. They know stuff not on the internet or books. They know how to minimize boat yoga. Watch closely and chat but not so much as to slow them down.

Hardest thing so far was knowing the name and sourcing parts. Knew this for sail. Frustrating not knowing it for power. Having someone to ask makes a difference. Redoing some head plumbing. Knew exactly what size, schedule and materials were appropriate on sail. This is a mix of pvc and sanitary hose. Multiple different types of fittings. Confusing to internet order. 15m with some one used to trawlers sorted me out. All my friends are sailors don’t have the circle of guys to ask yet.

I remain a bit intimidated by the larger size of things but find the same prechecks are the same. We put on the ear muffs change of watch and LOOK. Record readings from sensors hourly but nothing beats a look and a smear . Have found putting clean new pads under the engine helpful as well as a full wipe of the engine and transmission.

Use it or lose it. Learning new stuff is fun. Great catch on your part. Good on you