Racor 500 and Groco Water Strainer for Catalina 320?

[Tenedos]

Hello sailors,

I have had a recent engine maintenance. According to the mechanic (referred by a trustworthy friend of mine who has been using his services for years) this looked to be the only maintenance since years. Boat is a 1999 Catalina 320 and engine is a 27 HP Yanmar (3GM30F). This probably was true as the previous owners did not seem to do much maintenance. Engine was only at 200 hours but I use the boat a lot more than the previous owners so I want the systems to be in good condition.

Essentially we replaced all the hoses, changed oil and coolant (it still had the green coolant in it, replaced with a pink/red one, forgot the name), belts, etc. There were cracks on the raw water intake hose, that was replaced too. There are also cracks on the exhaust hose between the muffler and mixing elbow. That was identified during the pre-purchase survey. He left it untouched, apparently it is not terrible. I will be changing that myself, ordered the spares from Defender. That's my learning experience.

Now, he mentioned two more potential things to be done: Changing the fuel filter to a Racor 500 and changing the raw water filter to a Groco. Whatever I have are still the originals. He quoted close to $750 for labor and units for both, which is more than I am willing to pay, considering what I have paid for the maintenance and all other things since I bought the boat.

Now, I have a few questions:

• Do I really need to change those, is this change warranted?
• How complex is it to change these? I assume changing the fuel filter is more complex than changing the water filter? Should I dare to do this myself? (I am an engineer by training and I can learn things but I am not very mechanically hands-on and I don't know much about diesel engines)
• The mechanic quotes $224.39 for Racor 500 and $172.00 for Groco Water Strainer. I searched these on Defender and it comes back with many different options, I wasn't sure which ones he referred. For Groco I see ARG-P, ARG-S, SA, etc, series at different heights, which one should I choose? Also there are very different types for Racor 500 at different price levels, which one to choose? (This assumes I go with the installation myself)

Any advice will be appreciated.

Thanks in advance,

Tenedos