Maybe it’s some hard-to-reach spot at the end of the bilge. Perhaps you’re wondering what’s around that blind corner in your engine compartment. In my case, I just wanted to know what kind of fuel/water separator I had, and how hard it was going to be to replace the filter element.
Sometimes, you just can’t get your eyes in where you need to see, especially on a boat. I’ve often wished I had some kind of miniature remote-control robot, like those Mars rovers, with a tiny camera aboard.
But then I realized: Maybe I’ve got something nearly as good! I stuck my digital camera into the lazarette and took pictures from every angle, including “impossible” angles such as facing back toward the hatch, as shown above.
Using the macro setting and flash, I was able to “see” much more than I ever could have with my eyes alone, even from those angles I could see! I took some shots specifically to get a better idea what sort of sediment was sitting in the filter bowl:
I first utilized this technique a couple months ago, when my poor near-death cat Jack was hiding in the house, and I couldn’t find him. It’s amazing how many inaccessible nooks and crannies there are in a house! I took 34 pictures, altogether. Finally, I found him. Just to put your mind at rest, Jack is alive and well, and up to his old tricks.
It turns out these pictures (the fuel filter, not the cat-hunt pictures) were useful in another way, as well: Once I got to Covich-Williams, a dealer that sells Racor filters, I was told that the Honda-branded Racor filters used a unique numbering scheme, and that Honda is reluctant to release an ID number lashup “map”. So if I had come to him with nothing more that the part number on my Honda-branded filter, he would have no idea what filter element I needed. As it was, we were able to look at my pictures and figure it out. Just for the record: A Honda 17670-ZW1-030GH fuel/water separator filter element is exactly the same as a Racor S3240. I’m sure my readers want to know that!
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looks like your water separator glass bowl is full of water.. Engine won’t run for long…
Yeah, I was concerned about that. I replaced the filter element and cleaned all the brown gunk out of the bowl. I also replaced the low-pressure fuel filter in the engine itself.
Another great idea for your camera is to take a pic of all of the id plates on your equipment (electronics, engines, pumps, etc.) so you have a photo collection of all the make, model and serial numbers. I also use it to take a photo of all electrical or mechanical items before I start to take them apart so if I have a question of how they go back together I can always refer to the photo.
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