A25 Fuel Tank Mounting

[hetek]

Forgive me if this has been discussed before but the search function determined that the words "Fuel" and "Tank" were too common...

I'm to the point where the fuel tank goes in (Yay!) but just sitting it on the bare hull doesn't seem like that's what was intended.

I have seen wooden slats cross the top of the tanks, I imagine to "firmly secure it in place" but would like to ask for a description of what goes underneath.

TIA

[WillieC]

Find something yoga mattish-like for the corners, edges, whatever contact points. I used some foam packaging sheet material and doubled it over a few times and it works. I'm with you, bare metal on freshly painted gray bilgekote paint hurt my feelings too much to leave unprotected.
I got away from the slats on top and and made two chunks of wood sit firmly on top of the front and rear edges of the tank and then screwed them to the floor support frame. (My floor boards are 5/8", not 3/8" so you may need the slats, not that they will add much support. I did, however, fashion a mid-cross-tank support. Somewhere, in my checkered past, I learned that the support frame should run at right angles to the face grain of the plywood.) I also cut a strip of 1" blue foam to fit between the lowest/starboard edge of the tank and the engine box. Once it is all wedged in there and held down with the top blocks, it ain't going anywhere. I think I also fitted a couple similar wood blocks along the front and back of the bottom of the tank to prevent fore and aft movement. A serious consideration in a boat powered by a 36 horse engine fitted with drilled rotor disc brakes.
If you haven't already, consider installing a cleaning port. I had to because the internal baffle welds broke so I had a banging chunk of metal in there adding to the symphony. Then I found a bunch of crud in there, easy to clean with the 8" port. I forget the name, they are in Richland, WA, very helpful people. I did not replace the baffle, just removed it. It's 20 gallons, not 200.
The only other improvement I am considering for the long, dark, cold winter season is moving the vent up, news-flash, ABOVE the tank. DOH! I prefer to use the fuel gauge and good sense to judge when the tank is full. Not watching it spew out of the vent.
Also check your tubes while you have good access. I have read of then rotting off and providing only partial tank usage. I have also seen new from the factory pick up tubes laying in the bottom of generator daytanks. Easy to check and clean now.

[hetek]

All good advice, WillieC. And it seems we both have the same "checkered past" as I've heard the same about the grain!

I put the tank in place and it just teeter-totters around. Definitely not as Albin intended.

I've already had my tank rebuilt because the baffle had broken loose. They cut off the end, cleaned out the tank with Acetone, rewelded in the baffle and rewelded the end on. I probably lost a whopping half-pint in capacity but I have a secure baffle now and a spic-n-span clean tank!

Another thought I had was to go to a strictly mechanical gauge. I could put a clear inspection cover in the floorboard just above and to check fuel level would be as simple as looking down at the floor. Not like the Mighty Vetus in all its 25 hp glory is going to be sucking down fuel at any measureable rate. A glance once a week is probably all that is necessary. No wires, no electrical sending unit, no power... Simple!

[WillieC]

If we all hadn't been trained over the last fifty years to know that fuel gauges are not accurate, I would be looking at some kind of flow meter or multi-float sensing unit that accurately indicates fuel level. Instead, I will stick with the toilet bowl float rheostat and add five gallons whenever the gauge drops below 3/4 full. When it craps, I'll go to using the Hobbes meter and half a gallon per hour. I would really like to use a glass sight gauge, but I'd have to plumb it over the side of the boat and buy a wet suit to use it.

We went through a lot of fuel on our trip, some 70 gallons for over 700NM. Adding that much fuel by five gallon jerry can increments, I began to see miniscule traces of excreta that accumulates in the plastic jug. Over time, say 45 years, that could really crud up one's fuel tank. Thus I am glad I installed the access hole. I should have opted for the live video feed camera installed in the access hole and wired to my MFD screen. Then I wouldn't need no stinkin' fuel gauge! And it would help pass the time as we putter along at six knots.

Serially, I will pull the inspection cover this winter. I am curious to see what has accumulated/grown/transmogrified in the bottom of the tank over one season. When I first cleaned my tank, I thought I would need to scrub that black goo, but it easily wiped out with rags and and the last dry bits of residue sucked out with the vacuum cleaner. Wanna see my pictures? Nah. (Note to AOG lurkers in search of fuel tank issues: DO NOT use a vacuum cleaner on a gasoline tank. These are DIESEL.)

I'll let you know what I find. Now I gotta go burn the fifteen gallons still in the tank. That will put me back somewhere between Nanaimo and Comox!

[Sunsetrider]

Sorry, late to the party here. Hetek - I did the exact same procedure with my tank last year. There were foam pads under the tank, like those 70s shoulder pads, to level the tank as it sits. The strip of wood along the top doesn't do much of anything.

[DesertAlbin736]

WillieC put a lot more miles & hours on his boat than we did on ours on the recent BC cruise (see the Cruising forum). While we both launched from the same place & generally followed the same route our courses did diverge some of the time. For instance, we ran into some trouble with the low pressure fuel pump on our Yanmar. I'd had some chronic issues with small drip-drip leaks from the 'banjo bolt' fuel line fitting between the pump & filter & at one point over tightened it & stripped the threads on the outlet side. The engine still ran, but the leak got worse & so we headed back to Blaine early while Rick (WillieC) continued on to Sidney. We ended up with about 1/2 gallon of diesel sloshing around in the engine bed. Thank goodness Albin has an engine bed separate from the bilge! We could have ordered a new pump while in Nanaimo, which would have cost $200CAD ($160 US), but we held out until we could return to the US. I have a small Jabsco oil change pump on board & we had an empty one gallon alcohol stove fuel can & was able to pump all that fuel into the can. We got back to Blaine & drove down to a Yanmar dealer in Bellingham & picked up a new pump for $85 plus tax. We then stayed on the US side & went down into the San Juans for a stop at Friday Harbor to look at a trawler & a few nights on Lopez Island & final stop on Sucia.

Anyway, WillieC got back to Blaine after we did & decided to take his truck & trailer home without the boat on it & go the rest of the way back to Hood Canal by boat, hence his 700 NM total distance vs our 580 NM distance & 52 gallons of fuel used for 124.4 engine hours since starting with a full tank and ending with 7 hours run time since the final fill up. That's a shade over 0.4 GPH average and 11 nautical MPG. As for fuel gauges, ours is a simple mechanical float like the ones on portable outboard motor gas tanks & is read by looking through a hole in the floorboard over the tank. Simple but reliable. That, and I religiously log fuel use & engine hours at each fill up. So I have a record of every drop of fuel I've ever put in the tank since we bought the boat.

Getting back to the subject at hand, our tank now is about 3/4 full and will stay that way until the next time we get out on the lake again after the weather cools off toward the end of October. "Cooled off" is a relative term, which in our case is when the highs finally start to dip below 90. Here we are post-Labor Day and by this coming Saturday the forecast high is expected to be 106. Our local boating season, at least for us, is opposite most places, October through May. Be that as it may, I have never done anything with our fuel tank other than change out filters regularly & try to keep it filled with fresh fuel, and as far as we know the immediate PO never did anything either since a survey done around 2001 found no problems. All we've done is put 560 hours on the engine and run about 230 gallons of fuel through the tank since spring of 2014. So it's due to at least pull the tank & inspect it, which I'd like to do this winter once we use up as much of the fuel as possible that's in the tank now.

[tribologist]

Another thought I had was to go to a strictly mechanical gauge. I could put a clear inspection cover in the floorboard just above and to check fuel level would be as simple as looking down at the floor. Not like the Mighty Vetus in all its 25 hp glory is going to be sucking down fuel at any measureable rate. A glance once a week is probably all that is necessary. No wires, no electrical sending unit, no power... Simple!

Mr Moeller has been waiting your call.......

mechFuelSender.JPG

https://www.amazon.com/Moeller-Marine-M ... ank+Sender

http://moellermarine.com/moeller-marine ... 035751-10/

The 8" should give pretty good readings but they are quite a bit more expensive than the electrical senders..

By the way... I measured my tank to figure how to wire in a regular gauge and where the 1/2 tank level is. I'm changing mine to a unit where the rheostat is mounted half way down. The geometry turns out pretty good if you mount the rheostat 3-5/8 under the top and make the arm 5-1/4 long. Here is a drawing (the old hull design, 15 gallon usable fuel.) The error is about 10% at 1/4 tank. and you have some "reserve" after it is at empty.

Fuel sender.JPG

[hetek]

Ah, yes! Mr Moeller has indeed been calling my name every time I walked down the "Fuel Systems" aisle.

And, yes, they are quite a bit more pricey than the typical electric rheostat type. $50 vs $20 or something like that.

I decided to go electrical after all. I already have a dash gauge, and a 2-1/8" hole in my dash that needed filling. I bought a "Universal" Moeller sending unit but modified it by attaching the float to the non-adjustable portion of the arm (the way the fixed depth ones are built). I was also able to customize the depth that way. It reads pretty accurate except for, as you noted, the angled bottom of the tank skews the true readings below 1/4 full.