S/VFika

at Monterey by Wade

A fuel polishing system

A rebuilt engine deserves clean fuel. We built a fuel polishing system into the engine room that can filter diesel from any source and send it anywhere aboard.

The fuel polishing manifold on the engine room bulkhead, with valves above two Racor filters and fuel lines running down to the tanks

With the Perkins rebuilt, the next job was making sure it only ever sees clean diesel. So we built a fuel polishing system into the engine room.

Fuel polishing means running diesel through filters to pull out water, sludge, and grit before it can reach an engine. Fika’s fuel tanks were due for cleaning, and we also heat the boat with diesel, so both the Perkins and the diesel heater needed protecting from whatever was in those tanks.

How it works

A bank of valves on the engine room bulkhead decides where fuel comes from and where it goes. In between, it passes through the Racor filters.

It can draw fuel from:

  • A jerry can, so we can take on fuel of unknown quality and clean it before it goes into a tank
  • The port fuel tank
  • The starboard fuel tank

It filters through either Racor filter or both, depending on how the valves are set. That also means one filter can be changed while the engine keeps running on the other.

It can send clean fuel to:

  • A jerry can, so we can give clean fuel to someone else if they need it
  • The Perkins 4.236
  • The day tank for our diesel heater (a Webasto-style unit)
  • The port or starboard tank, so we can clean fuel and move it between our two 150 gallon tanks

What came next

The system was finished on February 12, 2026, with clean fuel now flowing to the engine and the heater. It came ahead of the next big job: cleaning and reconditioning the diesel tanks themselves.