Hi All,
I’ve just completed the install of my diesel prefilter/water seperator which I have detailed as best I can below. I am no diesel fuel specialist but have designed my system after researching this and other sites, and also talking to people in person. If you are looking at putting a second filter on you’ll find opinions out there are as diverse as say that of tyres or dual battery set ups. I went with a 30micron prefilter as I like the idea of having a staged filtration system with a good size differential between the two filters. I still believe no one knows the micron size of the OEM one but if Toyota are offering to install 5 micron secondary filters I suspect the primary filter element to be in the 5- 10 micron range??
Mounting location:
Figure 1 - As you can see I have no room on the RHS of my engine bay as I run a dual battery (BCDC1220) with a manual override solenoid to join the batteries if the main happened to fail. So I had to use the left hand side
Figure 2 - Engine bay left side has plenty of room as I mounted my compressor under my rear passenger seat.
Figure 3 - I managed to use one threaded holes on the engine bay side wall and then I used a nutsert tool to create another one. The grey is from primer paint I applied after drilling the hole
The filter unit: Racor 445R
For full specifications on this unit download this pdf
http://www.parker.com/literature/Racor/ ... Series.pdfFigure 4 - The filter showing the approx length of 26cm with the fuel restrictor indicator installed. Note the drain valve is the lowest point on the filter unit. The unit I ordered comes standard with a hand primer.
Figure 5 - The fuel restrictor indicator which was included with the filter unit I purchased. I’m guessing as the element gets blocked the vacuum increases thus compressing the spring inside this unit which is attached to an indicator. It will be interesting to see how this behaves over the course of the filter elements first 20k cycle.
Figure 6 - The unit has two inlet ports and two outlet ports. The unit came with two threaded blanking plugs to block the ports you are not going to use.
Figure 7 – The two 3/8 NPT 90degree barbed fittings I purchased to attach to the ports.
Figure 8 - Use a pipe sealant rather than thread tape when screwing in the fittings as bits of the tape may get into the fuel system.
Figure 9 - The mounted unit with hoses threaded high along the fire wall to the OEM filter. Make sure you protect the hose with some large diameter (20mm ish) corrugated conduit as there are a few small bolt ends which protrude through form the cab right next to where I ran the fuel lines. Another point is do not over tighten the hose clamp on the inlet to the OEM filter as it is only plastic. I guess I could have used the original spring clip here?
The water-in-fuel Detection Kit, Part no. RK30880E
For full specifications on this unit download this pdf
http://www.parker.com/literature/Racor/ ... on_Kit.pdfIf getting the water detection probe make sure it is this part number as I accidentally ordered part number RK30694 which is just a probe with no electronics. I wrongly assumed I could simply add a light to this but in the instructions for this part it says a detection module is required. The RK30880E has a resistor built into which triggers the alarm (closes the circuit) when a resistance of 47Ohms is achieved. Before I did any wiring up I first made a test circuit on my work bench and placed the probe in a glass of water to see how it worked and I’m glad to say it does. It does take a 5 -10 seconds to turn off once you remove the probe from the water and dry it manually.
Figure 10 - The RK30880E kit. It has a very nice harness with very robust connectors. The wiring harness comes in two main bits, the probe plus and the wiring harness which joins together with a very good quality plug.
Figure 11 - The wiring diagram for the above pdf with the position of the buzzer I added in parallel with the warning light
Figure 12 - The end of the probe which screws into the bottom of the water bowl.
Figure 13 – The female socket attached to the probe
Figure 14 – The male connector. Note there is only three wires (red, black , yellow) which come out of the plug.
Figure 15 – The warning light which is supplied with the kit
Figure 16 – The 445R unit with the water probe installed
Figure 17 – For a positive power source I used the big blue wire from what I believe is the power mirror circuit located behind the front passenger side kick panel. I spliced both the red wire and one of the wires from the warning light into this. Note in this image the yellow wire spliced into the blue is not the yellow on the supplied loom it is actually an in line fuse holder which then connects to the warning light as per the wiring diagram. The yellow wire from the loom goes to the other side of the warning light. The blue wire is only live when the key is in the ON position and not the ACC or OFF positions
Figure 18 – Testing the circuit. Before I crimped everything up I grounded the yellow wire side of the warning light to simulate the water probe being triggered. It worked as you can see by the bright yellow light. I simply grounded it to the negative of the cigarette ligther. I later found out that when you start your car the light and buzzer is triggerd momentarily which lets you know the circuit is operational.
Figure 19 – Installed water in fuel light in dash. The piezo buzzer is behind the panel which I wrapped some electrical tape around to dampen the noise a bit. I finished the job off with a little plastic engraved label I had made at a trophy shop.
Costs:
1. Racor 445R Fuel Filter/Water separator with one 30 micron filter element and vacuum guage $209.35.
2. Two spare filter elements $68.84
3. Water in Fuel Detection Kit Part No RK30880E. I think it was around the $90. It is hard to know as I returned the wrong probe for a refund and then was shipped the correct part.
4. Mini Piezo Buzzer 3-16V $4
5. 2m Fuel line $19. Note I actually got about 2.5m as it was the end of the roll so the guy just gave me the lot which I used all of.
6. 2 x 3/8 90 degree barbed male elbows $14
7. 4 x hose clamps $14
8. 2m split 7mm corrugated conduit $4
9. 1m wire and connectors $2
10. Inline bland fuse holder $6
11. Label for installed warning light
Total of $368 plus $69 for two spare filter elements. All figures are inclusive of postage which was from New York State in the case of the filter unit and accessories.
Conclusions:
This was not a hard install but it did take some planning and sourcing parts from different suppliers. I say it took 3 – 4 hours but I did it over the course of two weeks so it’s hard to tell. The supplier for the racor products I used was
http://stores.ebay.com.au/themarinesupplierThis supplier was very good to deal with and accepted the return of the wrongly order part even though I had opened the package. If you want extra parts like the water probe and filter elements it is best to contact him first to get a price for the total amount. He didn’t actually have the RK30880E part listed on his site but I PMed him and he said he could supply it. Thanks also to previous posters to this thread and other related threads on this forum.