Daft dizzler question

[whitevanman]

Now I've been working on cars for 32 years and suddenly had one of my daft thoughts.......I've always assumed that diesel cars have swirl pots in the fuel tank, but I had a look inside one of my old diesel tanks and couldn't see a swirl pot, then I wondered is that what the fuel filter does in addition to filtering, its about the size of an external swirl pot on most older cars.......opinions?

[Milford Cubicle]

I think diesels, especially older ones, have large fuel filters simply so there's a large filtration surface - since diesel tends to wax in cold weather, it'll clog up slower with more filter surface.That's my guess anyway.

[Dead_E23]

The diesels I've owned have mostly had a bleed screw at the top of the fuel filter, so I don't think they could be said to work like a swirl pot. This is why it's a bad idea to run diesels low on fuel! Istr that the BX's XUD9 engine could bleed itself, but you needed a good battery to do it. I used to use a massive pair of supermarket emergency lighting batteries that I'd installed in a big ammo box so they could be lugged about.

[Milford Cubicle]

The screw at the bottom is to release any water that's collected in the bottom of the filter.

[garbaldy]

I have cleaned out a couple off disiesel tanks and both never had swirl pots, the newest was a 98 seat toledo tdi with a plastic tank and no swirl pot whatsoever,if a derv is ran low then there is enough juice in the filter to keep it going for enough time to sup the flowgo again sometimes with a hickup or two just to let you know theres trouble ahead I have just started to strip the kitcar of its 4age engine today so i though i would run it dry first, removed and emptied fuel tank and started the engine it ran on part throttle for about 5 minutes without faultering once, i gave up in the end and just striped it anyway couldnt be bothered waiting its amazing just how much fuel is in the pipes and filter.

[dieselnutjob]

what's a swirl pot?

[meggersdog]

Are you thinking of swirl chambers ?Older diesels used to have a seperate chamber in the head which is why the more modern engines were called direct injection as this seperate swirl chamber is no longer needed.

[Richard]

The screw at the bottom is to release any water that's collected in the bottom of the filter.

And also to drain the fuel out for filter changes.

[whitevanman]

what's a swirl pot?

A swirl pot is a small container that stores fuel or a metal ring in the tank, its placed before the engine and allows for injected cars to have a reserve of fuel that can be drawn up when cornering hard