I was taking to my parts guy this week and asked him "Do you have a fuel filter for an 89 F250 with the 7.3 liter diesel engine?"

He said he had three. One without a lower removable base, one with a base and drain, and one with a base and drain that has a wire going to the base.

My truck has a base with a drain with a wire going to it.

Will the baseless filter work?

Is there such a thing?

 

nope.you don't want the first one.you want the second one.
the first one without a way to screw on your base would eliminate your water separator.-bad news! injectors and ip hate water.
the last one,is probably the one you can buy that has the water separator and water in fuel lite signal in case yours is leaking etc.

option one (with solid base) only seems cheap now.you won't think so if you get a bad dose of fuel just once,or over time as the fuel continues to flow,this causes condensation and it must get removed,otherwise you'd run it through the ip/injectors and slowly damage them.

 

i use the first one. the screw on water seperator is only another place to leak. the drain on the bottom of the filter is good enough in my opinion, because i only get good fuel, and have never had to drain water out of a filter.

 

they all should be fuel/water separators. The one has a removable base, it is prone for leaking. Then there are the other two which one has the water drain and a water in fuel sensor. Then the other just has the water drain. All in all the last two that are one piece filters are the way to go. Pricing between the two are just a few dollar difference.

 

oh ok.i never looked at one of the solid ones before.i didn't know they had a drain too.well this is good.they knew to protect us either way then.

 

I personally like the all in one filter, but they don't often have them at my parts shop so I gotta get the one that uses the dish at the bottom.

 

the link to the fuel filter you want is in my sig. i been running them for over a year. no problems. just open the drain and let the water out every once in awhile like you would with the stock design. its basically the same without the leaking bottom piece.

 

I dont mean to try to take the thread here, but what is this about the water separator? I have the one with the line and the wire coming off of it, am i supposed to drain something? I am unfamiliar with this...(only had the truck for 3 months)

 

I'm just going to throw my 2 cents in here. Any of the filter options should work fine. A lot of people switch to the one piece as they have problems with the plastic base leaking on the 2 piece filters.

I've never had an issue with water in my fuel. Maybe I'm just lucky, or my fuel stations have better fuel than other people. I drained my filter for the first time in 2 years last winter, there wasn't even a single drop of water. If you're not sure, just drain a bit of fuel out of the filter every now and then and see what it looks like. If you find water will be immediately apparent as it will separate out of the diesel.

 

I dont see any drain either but there is a drain line coming from the base. Maybe it was removed by someone?

My 240D had a filter without a drain and I just removed it and dumped it into a clear jar one a year. In 11 years I never had water. I always bought from a reputible large volume diesel seller.

Im thinking of going with the baseless filter. Are they much cheaper than the ones with a screw one base?

 

One Piece Design:
| O'Reilly Auto Parts

Two Piece Design:
| O'Reilly Auto Parts

 

One Piece Design:
| O'Reilly Auto Parts

Two Piece Design:
| O'Reilly Auto Parts

 

For a lower price, though you have to add in shipping, you can try discount fleet supply
Wix 33617

 

7.3 engine.....
The filter with the removable base (transferable to your new filter) will offer notification on the dash light....should the sensor encounter water in the fuel filter. It also has the drain spigot with vent valve which the hose/small pipe are attached to so you can drain water/fuel on a warm engine.

Fleetguard FG1281 from my Navistar truck center is the filter I use.

Yes.. you can use any of the other filters with or without a WIF sensor installed as long as it is for the 7.3.... 6.9 filter threads are a different size.