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Racor 500 plus failure

Discussion in 'Technical Discussion' started by Pascal, May 21, 2023.

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  1. Pascal, May 21, 2023
    #1
    Pascal

    Pascal Senior Member

    Joined:
    Feb 29, 2008
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    8,149
    Location:
    Miami, FL
    Last couple of trips I noticed my 18kw Norpro surging a little on medium load. I replaced both the racor and secondary and it seemed a little better on the last run. Yesterday when I fired it up it started surging even without load and would stumble badly when a chiller started.

    Opened the racor 500 which was 3/4 empty. Thinking the electric fuel pump was getting weak I decided to rig a walbro between the tank and the racor, in the port ER. Flip it on and found fuel leaking from the bottom of the racor. Turned out the small plastic plug, which I believe is used where a water sensor would go, was partially cracked and leaking. Under suction it would suck air causing the power loss. When I removed the plug it cracked all the way.

    Since I have no intention on putting a water sensor and since I didn’t have anything that would fit the threads, I just epoxied it back in place.

    gen has now been running fine with both chillers for the last 3 hours.

    Attached Files:

  2. Capt Ralph, May 21, 2023
    #2
    Capt Ralph

    Capt Ralph Senior Member

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    12,727
    Location:
    Satsuma, FL
    It's these lil things that leave the bigger bite marks.
    Good catch before it got to really leaking.
  3. Capt J, May 21, 2023
    #3
    Capt J

    Capt J Senior Member

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    Fort Lauderdale
    replace the entire bowl, that bowl looks nasty and they're cheap enough.
    SplashFl likes this.
  4. Pascal, May 21, 2023
    #4
    Pascal

    Pascal Senior Member

    Joined:
    Feb 29, 2008
    Messages:
    8,149
    Location:
    Miami, FL
    I may replace the bowl… but I didn’t want to scrap the week end trip so epoxy was a quick fix

    looking back, this plug has been failing and sucking air for a while. I ve had some minor surging issues under load for 2 or 3 years but I thought the gen was a bit tired and it wasn’t broke enough to fix.