Is your fuel pump before your primary? If so, you should re-plumb it to be after the primary filter, then you never have to worry about that screen ever again. That tiny screen shouldn't be the first filter in your system.fuel pump sieve/screen
Of course not.Any reason I can't do all of the above in the Fall?
Which sounds like you do not have a primary filter and that the only filter you have is the engine mounted one. If this is correct, most of us would recommend adding a primary filter before the fuel pump (Facet, not fasco).The O'Day 28 (1985 in my case) was plumbed fuel tank to Fasco pump with internal fine screen and magnet, then on to the engine and its fuel filter.
It’s one of those things that works fine until it doesn’t. If debris grows in the tank it will clog the Facet screen, which doesn’t have the filtering capacity of a real filter. Most likely that will happen when you’re in rough seas and are counting on the engine to beat an approaching thunderstorm.I am citing the original set up from O'day. When I got the boat in 1995, a Racor was added, but after the Facet pump, then on to the engine. If this is wrong, I wonder why it has worked so well for 25 years now....
Because you were lucky and perhaps got clean fuel.If this is wrong, I wonder why it has worked so well for 25 years now....
1. Yes, I am. And O'Day wasn't the only manufacturer who did that. I know for certain that early C34s came that way from the factory. Once knowledgeable owners starting buying them in droves in 1986 & 1987 (they made and sold almost 800 those first two years alone, 1,801 hulls by the time they finished in 2007), those owners contributed to the Catalina Association's Mainsheet magazine Tech Notes advising other owners to correct that error. It was one of the first things most owners who read the magazine did. My PO did NOT do that even though he gave me all of those magazines from 1987 when I bought my boat from him in 1998. My engine still ran, but it was the right thing to "fix." The little tiny filter on the bottom of the Facet pump was nearly plugged when I did the repair.1. So you essentially are all saying that O'Day messed up shipping boats which plumbed the fuel tank to a lift pump and on to the engine fuel filter
2. ...and that adding the Racor after the lift pump even makes things worse, despite the extra filtration stage?
Can't wait to hear your next stage of denial.Thanks, guys. Interesting indeed!