Greetings,
I recently acquired this rare vehicle, a 85 Mazda 626 with the diesel engine. This vehicle has the same engine (RF) and transmission as the Ford Escort/Tempo of similar vintage. I previously owned some diesel Escorts and there are a lot of similarities in the engine compartment, but not exactly. The Escorts have a combination fuel filter, heater, water separator/sensor unit which is kind of expensive for filter replacement but it makes good use of the small space. The Mazda has these functions covered with two units, first a water separator/sensor unit (they call it a sedimenter) and then a fuel filter. There does not seem to be any fuel heater involved. Anyway, my "sedimenter" is missing, I only have a fuel filter. So, I don't have any water separating going on. My question to you is a source for this part, or a way to achieve water separation some other way-aftermarket part or VW or Mercedes or? I do have a spare Escort engine, so I could use the unit from that. What are your suggestions? Thanks, Chris

Any filter or housing with a drain at the low point is effectively a water separator- If there are any boat/marine second hand places in your region, check those out- Racor makes excellent units, but are pricey new... old industrial diesel, and gas engines usually have a drain- some have glass bowls so you can see whats going on-
Or go to a heavy duty parts store and ask- I've seen a few variations for big trucks-

OK, thanks for your response. I checked out a few possibilities on the web. Does anyone else have suggestions for this? I would prefer to put in the correct part, but that might not be possible because the vehicle is so rare. I do have a filter set up from a diesel Escort that I could use, but it seems like overkill on the filtering just to get the water separation. Is it possible to build up too much flow resistance by having two filters? I guess I could also replace the Mazda's filter and "sedimenter" with the all in one Escort version. Ideally, I would be able to wire up the water in fuel light as well.
Thanks again for your suggestions, Chris

Either a RACOR generic unit or find an Escort unit.

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http://rfr2mazdadiesel.com