Dear All,

Having spent a lot of time and effort cleaning out my fuel tank and replacing hard and soft fuel lines on my 1981 W123 300D I'd like to protect my hard work from the fuel tank forward by fitting an additional fuel filter.

What would you suggest? I want something that will be a free flowing as possible whilst still performing the job!

Has anyone ever come across an after market filter assembly that would allow use of cartridge type fuel filters?

Advice and help on this matter will greatly received. May be bio-dieselers already do this???

The Secondar/Spin-on Filter is a Nominal 10 micron filter and the Primar/Plastic Filter is a 20 Nominal Micron filter.

I am not exactly sure what your goal is.
Any Filter outside of the Fuel Tank will not prevent the Fuel Tank Strainer from getting restricted. So a filter outside of the Tank would not prevent you from having to remove the Tank Strainer if it is plugged up.
You could cut off the Tank Stainer and install a manual shutoff Valve (so you can change the Filter without draining the fuel tank) and install a Filter somewhere near the Tank Outlet.
In fact now that I think about it you would need a manual shutoff Valve before and after the Filter because the Fuel would want to drain from the Front to the back also when you remove the Filter; not just from the Fuel Tank.

If you want a lower micron filteration here is one thread on that:


If you want Cartridge type filters Racor sells Filter Housings and you can buy different micron ratings of filters for the same housing.

Ebay is a good place to look for Filter Housings and Filters; you can see some of what is available.

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84 300D, 82 Volvo 244Gl Diesel

There's pretty much... nothing... forward of the tank until you get up to the engine bay. It's just a straight shot of wide open fuel pipe. Nothing really to plug up. A piece of trash big enough to stop up those fuel supply and return lines would never make it past the internal tank strainer.

The first clear plastic filter under your hood IS the first opportunity for filtration. Because the lines from the tank to that filter are simply straight uninterrupted runs, there's nothing in between that's worth protecting.

If you just like the idea of extra insurance, the place I would personally add a third fuel filter (besides the two already on the car, and that's not counting the strainer) is in line with the first under-hood filter. Just one after the other. It'd be extra filtration, but since the first one to plug up will stop the car anyway, it's sort of a moot point.

My advice: There's nothing that filtration would buy you and it's going to be a pain changing a pointless filter under the car when you can do the exact same thing on the existing clear filter. The *exact* same thing, just at the output end instead of the input end of the same garden hose.

__________________


~Michael S.~
Past cars:

1986 300SDL
1987 300SDL
1982 240D
1982 300SD


Current:

1987 300SDL

The strainer in the tank is your primary filter. If you drain your tank to remove any water every few years and clean the strainer you will achieve the same thing. Your horrible clean out is probably the first in the cars life. A second filter back there would be a PITA.

__________________
Grumpy Old Diesel Owners Club group

I no longer question authority, I annoy authority. More effect, less effort....

1967 230-6 auto parts car. rust bucket.
1980 300D now parts car 800k miles
1984 300D 500k miles
1987 250td 160k miles English import
2001 jeep turbo diesel 130k miles
1998 jeep tdi ~ followed me home. Needs a turbo.
1968 Ford F750 truck. 6-354 diesel conversion.
Other toys ~J.D.,Cat & GM ~ mainly earth moving

Thank you all very much for your responses - I agree that an additional filter would be a pain in the....

May be I'm over-reacting but after replacing all of the fuel lines (except the tank over flow) I really do not want these new lines getting silted up with the black grime that was infesting the fuel system. It had gone through the canister filter at the front and into the clear fuel lines that connect to and from the pump. See photographs. The muck is inside the pipes - the outside was just cleaned with brake cleaner. They have now been replaced.

Attached Thumbnails

     

There is another solution that some Boaters use called "Fuel Polishing"; look it up for more details.

You leave the stock filter set up alone and set up a separate Fuel Filter with and Electric Fuel pump. The only purpose of this setup is to circulate Fuel from the Tank; through the Filter and back to the Fuel Tank.

It seems redundant until you consider that you can use a large 2 absolute micron Fuel Filter (compared to your small stock 10 nominal micron Spin-on Filter) that will Filter a way larger volume of Fuel through it with out restricting your stock filtration system.

So you would be filtering all but the small amount of Fuel being used by the Engine over and over agin to a finer micron level.

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84 300D, 82 Volvo 244Gl Diesel