Fuel Filter Change ?

[RedRamer]

Reading the manual it says I should change the fuel filter every 9k kms under city driving use and 18k kms under extended driving use - highway driving.

Can someone tell me why as I feel the volume of fuel going through the filter should be the determining factor?

I have the canister type filter and just released a bit through the bypass valve and after 7 mo. there was no water or dirt.

thanks

 

[Joe G.]

I got tired of throwing away pefectly clean filters so I'm letting mine stay on the truck for a lot longer. I've heard that Marc Chappel (TST Products) left the filter on his until it got rusty. When I ran a comercial fish boat we didn't change fuel filters until fuel pressure dropped. Just opened the water drain valve before each trip. That engine was a '55 6/71 with a lot of hours of hard use. The fuel injectors had never been touched since it had been installed in the boat. I recently installed a fuel pressure guage so I'm going to do it that way from now on.

 

[Neibe]

I change mine every 10,000 miles as suggested by the Michigan Cummins service center. It's really cheap insurance when compared to a $1700 fuel pump.

 

[Joe G.]

One thing to note is that a fuel filter does a better job when it's dirty according to some knowlegeable people, some of whom have posted to these forums. With that in mine then using the filter as long as possible is better. That works ok with our P7100 pumps since they don't use fuel for lubrication like the rotary pumps so starving them of fuel won't hurt. With a fuel pressure gauge I can detect the low pressure situation long before it quits thus preventing fuel starvation. I carry a spare just in case I need it.

 

[illflem]

I change mine once a year,about 20k miles. If you are sure you are getting good fuel you probably could go longer. A risk you have running a fuel filter for an extended period is that the media can break down or tear letting all the crud though, it won't show on a fuel pressure gauge. That happened to me once on a Cat D-7, $6000 to rebuild the injection pump. I think it was Papa Joe who posted that his original stock filter didn't finally plug up until 60k.

 

[Joe G.]

Bill,



That's interesting about the D7 filter plugging up. Do you have any idea what caused it? One season when I was fishing the fuel got contaminated by algae the winter before. We really went thru the filters before that was finally cleared up. There was a LOT of dead snot in a thousand gallons! The pressure in the system was 60 PSI or over. If it dropped below 60 we changed the filter. Never had a filter fail in the several cases we used that season. That was the criteria the rest of the fleet used also. Low fuel pressure, change filter. Otherwise run it. So far all of my truck fuel has been sparkling clean.

 

[illflem]

Joe, the D-7 filter didn't fail because it was plugged, it was because it was old. Fuel pressure was fine till it died. The Cat dealer in Santa Maria was the one who found the broken down media and told me that all filters should be changed once a year for that reason, even if you only put a few hours on the rig. My John Deere dealer has told me the same thing. This is part of the reason why service intervals are always written in so many hrs/miles or so many months. I didn't use the 7 all that much so didn't bother changing it, the filter was at least 3 years old.

 

[Joe G.]

That is something to think about. Mine has been on there for some time now. Do you know if the Cat filter was paper or some sort of synthetic? I think I'll change mine and cut it open to check on the media. The last time I did that all I found was wet media. No discoloration or scum or anything funny. That was with something like 15K miles on it. The only thing I've ever seen in the pre-filter was a waxy deposit that looked like a dead bug. Might have been a dead bug for all I know. I gave up checking the pre-filter every oil change. Every 3rd oil change now if I remember it.

 

[HerbW]

The reason that the manual has the two different mileage changes schedule is fairly easy to understand. The time idling while driving in the city uses the filters even if it doesn't register on the odometer. Same goes for your oil filter. Your filters could have twice the use and wear and not show on the odometer. I work for the phone company and when I used to splice cables, the truck would just idle for days so we could use all the flashers, lights, etc and the use never registered on the odometer. We then had hour meters to track the actual use for a better service life of the filters, etc. This may be a better way to really match your filter schedules with engine use. Just my two cents worth! I change mine once a year if it needs it or not. HerbW