Can a carbon canister suck up dust?

[strantor]

I purchased a plate compactor (Item #52313) from Northern Tool last week and I've been using it to compact my new crushed concrete driveway. I noticed today some black doodad dangling down. It has 3 ports for hoses and only 2 of them have hoses on them. I googled the P/N and figured out it is a carbon canister (never seen one on an engine this small). I found where it goes on the engine and put it back but I could not find the third hose. Looked all around, no hose on the ground and no place for another hose to go on the engine. I call Northern Tool tech support about it and they said no hose goes there; that's just meant to vent to the atmosphere. I don't know if I trust their answer, or maybe their engineering, or both.

While googling the P/N of the carbon canister I found a video showing how to retrofit a carbon canister to existing equipment and they say to always mount it higher than the gas tank. The carbon canister in a car is also mounted higher; usually at the top of the engine bay. This canister is mounted at the very bottom of the engine, well below both the gas tank and the carburetor.

Also from my layman's understanding of automotive evap systems, it's normal for the canister to have some vacuum on it. This canister is mounted at the bottom of the unit where it is surrounded by a perpetual cloud of dust during normal operation. There is already a thin cake of dust surrounding the inner radius of the 3rd (open) port with about 10hrs on the machine.

So i have my doubts about their placement of the canister which lead to further doubts about it sucking dirt into my carburetor. Am I wrong? Is there any risk of that canister introducing dust into the fuel system? The Northern Tech Support guy says it's fine but I have a funny feeling about it.

Would it be a good idea to install a breather tube that runs up the handle to a location with less dust and/or put some sort of filter element on it?

 

[boomer1025]

I'd just make a filter and put on it or buy a filter for it.

 

[s219]

Be curious to know where the other two hoses connect to. All the canister should be doing is acting as an emissions trap on the fuel vent. Normally there would be one line to the canister from the fuel tank or fuel system, and then another line open to atmosphere or running to a vent that is open to atmosphere.

 

[s219]

BTW, I don't think dust can get past the canister media, but I suspect dust could clog the media and reduce the emissions function of the canister.

 

[strantor]

Be curious to know where the other two hoses connect to. All the canister should be doing is acting as an emissions trap on the fuel vent. Normally there would be one line to the canister from the fuel tank or fuel system, and then another line open to atmosphere or running to a vent that is open to atmosphere.

Line from the fuel tank goes down to the canister, then the 2nd line goes from the canister to the carb. This canister is basically spliced in where a normal engine would have the fuel line straight from the tank to the carb.

 

[s219]

The charcoal canister should only function as a trap for vapor and it wouldn't have anything to do with liquid fuel. It's intended to block hydrocarbons in the fuel vapor from escaping into the atmosphere. So I think the two lines to the canister are vent lines, one from tank and the other from carb.

I would assume there is a separate supply line from the tank to the carb with a normal fuel filter inline. Is that the case?

 

[strantor]

The charcoal canister should only function as a trap for vapor and it wouldn't have anything to do with liquid fuel. It's intended to block hydrocarbons in the fuel vapor from escaping into the atmosphere. So I think the two lines to the canister are vent lines, one from tank and the other from carb.

I would assume there is a separate supply line from the tank to the carb with a normal fuel filter inline. Is that the case?

I agree. What I described doesn't make sense. I probably missed something. I'll check again tomorrow.

 

[Tractor Seabee]

Didn't it come with a manual? When everything else fails, read the instructions.

Ron

 

[strantor]

Didn't it come with a manual? When everything else fails, read the instructions.

Ron

Ha! Yes, it came with a "manual." Two of them in fact; one for the compactor and a separate one for the engine. They're both worthless. Until the canister fell off, that was my biggest complaint with the machine. They make zero mention of the canister and it is not shown in any of the parts drawings. It's an obvious afterthought that they just slapped on wherever it would fit, probably as it was on its way out the door of the factory. They also make no mention of the oil that the vibratory unit requires. There's a big cautionary sticker on the machine warning to add the oil before use but nowhere does it say what oil to use or how much. I looked up other models of Northern Tool compactors and the bigger, nicer one calls for Omala 100 or 10W30 motor oil so I just used 10W30. Hopefully it doesn't fall apart. I probably should have confirmed that while I had tech support on the phone.

 

[Ford850]

It's probably a vapor trap so it can be sold in California. It's not sucking air through that.