Murphy Laughs At Us

A subtitle to this post is "The Jabsco Little Pal Pump."

On May 26, we moved from Rock Sound Harbor to Spanish Wells, going via Current Cut, which is an interesting path, if you don't mind following a path that looks like it is going to put you on the coral or on the beach, but eventually takes you into the deep water of the cut. The engines ran perfectly. Problem solved! (NOT!)

May 27, we left Spanish Wells and headed to Marsh Harbor. At 1311, our log entry says: "Fuel pump failing again." Mike found more oil in the bottom of the pump but after the repair the engine didn't run any better. In fact, it was worse than before. We also resorted to another filter change, just to make sure that the filter that we had installed a few days ago had not become clogged.

Mike disassembles and cleans the Racor filter

There are no good solutions for us in Marsh Harbor either. The winds are supposed to be from the south west, so we head out to St. Augustine on May 28. The crossing goes well, but is uncomfortable due to two wave patterns, one from the SE from the old trades and a new one from the SW, generated by the new winds. The mix of waves makes it a sloppy ride, bouncing LUX around quite a bit. Unfortunately, we can't change course very much to lessen the impact of the waves on the boat motion. On our way, we do more diagnosis and troubleshooting. The Racor filter is removed, disassembled, and cleaned. There is some evidence of bio-growth in the bottom of the filter. We also try priming the system using the manual priming lever on the side of the pump. It doesn't work very well and we never get real good flow of fuel going from the small priming pump.

Experiment 3: Fortunately, we brought one of the Jabsco "Little Pal Pump" oil pumps with us, thinking that it might be good for a variety of tasks if we have to pump fluids. It turned out to be a great tool. It has a short length of clear 1/4-inch ID tubing on it that has an OD of 3/8-inch, which is just right to fit inside the 3/8 ID fuel hose. A boat engine catheter! The clear hose allows us to see the fluid as we pump, checking for clarity and bubbles. We were able to use it to make sure that we could pull fuel from the tank, pumping it into a gallon jug.

The Leopard 40 has a unique feature that I've not seen elsewhere - a separate fuel supply line that goes to a squeeze priming bulb pump like you would see on the fuel line to an outboard engine in a small boat. We used this pump to make sure that the Racor filter was full after changing a filter. We had found the filter housing with air in it a couple of times. After checking all the gaskets and gasket seats, making sure that there was no air intrusion into the filter housing, the running problem still remained. Using the Jabsco and bulb pumps convinced us that there was no problem with the fuel pickup and therefore, it must be a problem with the pump. So we ordered a replacement pump while still offshore, but within cell phone range. We were able to get the order placed before the last shipment out on May 30, so we would hopefully receive it on May 31.

To Be Continued...