fuel gauge

This chart will tell you what type of tubing is compatible with diesel fuel or other liquids"

McMaster-Carr

It seems that at a dollar or two per foot, tubing rated for diesel fuel would be worth the extra expense over water tubing from the home center.

When at the home center buying other "non-marine" parts for my boat...picking up a few feet of ANY vinyl tubing that works great for 5-10 years and DOESN'T endanger my boat seems like the thing to do....no shipping time or charges...

....but that just me... ...with my thousands of hours of professional water time...but I know that's meaningless to many here....

If I must...lets start a poll on how many here have lost their boats to cheap vinyl tubing used as sight gauges...

We've had the boat 14+ years and the tanks and gauges were installed the year before we bought the boat. So the sight tubes are some 15+ years old now. They are by no means clear as a bell. They have discolored over the years. But it is still easy to read the level of the fuel in the tube.

Each tube has a manual lever valve at its base that we keep closed except momentarily when we check the levels in the tanks. There should be valves at the tops of the tubes, too, but for whatever reason the tank installer omitted them. Not a good idea but I haven't been motivated enough yet to install upper valves, especially since once the fuel level in the tank is below the upper sight tube connection an upper valve plays no role.

I've not been able to find any brand name on the tubing so I have no idea if it's run-of-the-mill plastic tubing or "marine" fuel tubing. But if the sight tubes are valved and kept closed off except when taking a measurement and if the tubing is compatible with diesel fuel I see nothing wrong with using inexpensive "run-of-the-mill" tubing for a sight tube.

And it helps to be aware that the bottom valve needs to be opened to get a read on how much fuel is left. An aquintance with his first ever Grand Banks did not realize there was a valve on the sight glass and even mentioned to his wife that the boat didn't seem to use much fuel, that was just before his engines quit as he ran out of fuel.

Depending on the boat , the simple dip stick, , a piece of old water hose can sometimes be slid GENTLY!!! to the tank bottom.

The depth of fuel in the tank will easily show on the plastic.

It will be a job to calibrate it while refueling, , Add 10 gal , measure , repeat till full.

But once done , and written in the log , nothing is simpler.

FF said:

Depending on the boat , the simple dip stick, , a piece of old water hose can sometimes be slid GENTLY!!! to the tank bottom.

The depth of fuel in the tank will easily show on the plastic.

It will be a job to calibrate it while refueling, , Add 10 gal , measure , repeat till full.

But once done , and written in the log , nothing is simpler.

Click to expand...

I thought of that and tried it, but my fuel fill hoses have an "S" bend that makes it impossible to do. My tanks are rectangular so calculations would be simple but I can't "stick" the tanks and have no sight tubes.

Each boat is different (except for the ones that are the same).

psneeld said:

When at the home center buying other "non-marine" parts for my boat...picking up a few feet of ANY vinyl tubing that works great for 5-10 years and DOESN'T endanger my boat seems like the thing to do....no shipping time or charges...

....but that just me... ...with my thousands of hours of professional water time...but I know that's meaningless to many here....

If I must...lets start a poll on how many here have lost their boats to cheap vinyl tubing used as sight gauges...

Click to expand...

Your poll won't work as most of the unlucky ones are likely no longer with us to vote. ......I for one without your experiance would rather be safe than sorry and would rather not play russian roulette.

rwidman said:

This chart will tell you what type of tubing is compatible with diesel fuel or other liquids"

McMaster-Carr

It seems that at a dollar or two per foot, tubing rated for diesel fuel would be worth the extra expense over water tubing from the home center.

Click to expand...

cheap insurance to use the correct part for the job. Thanks for the link, I never thought of mcmasters carr i always end up at grainger

FF said:

Depending on the boat , the simple dip stick, , a piece of old water hose can sometimes be slid GENTLY!!! to the tank bottom.

The depth of fuel in the tank will easily show on the plastic.

It will be a job to calibrate it while refueling, , Add 10 gal , measure , repeat till full.

But once done , and written in the log , nothing is simpler.

Click to expand...

But not convenient!

markpierce said:

But not convenient!

Click to expand...

and the dipstick is a potential source of dirt and other contamination of your fuel

Hey, that tug is gettin way too fancy.......

This looks really like a cool thing. Did you install it?

markpierce said:

But not convenient!

Click to expand...

markpierce said:

But not convenient!

Click to expand...

Mark: How did you calibrate your various tanks with the Tank Tender? When we installed ours, we calibrated them 5 gallons at a time and have a chart in the log book. I can pretty much tell now just by looking. I do like the Tank Tender system.

dhmeissner said:

This looks really like a cool thing. Did you install it?

Click to expand...

No, the builder did.

Larry M said:

Mark: How did you calibrate your various tanks with the Tank Tender? When we installed ours, we calibrated them 5 gallons at a time and have a chart in the log book. I can pretty much tell now just by looking. I do like the Tank Tender system.

Click to expand...

The fuel tanks are all the same volume/configuration and the water tanks are equal too. As I recall, each inch for the fuel represents about 3 gallons, and 4 gallons for the water. I merely filled the tanks full and took the inch readings (gallons divided by inches). Seems to have worked out OK/good enough.

markpierce said:

The fuel tanks are all the same volume/configuration and the water tanks are equal too. As I recall, each inch for the fuel represents about 3 gallons, and 4 gallons for the water. I merely filled the tanks full and took the inch readings (gallons divided by inches). Seems to have worked out OK/good enough.

Click to expand...

so, when your boat is at rest in its slip the tank is perfectly level and of rectangular configuration correct?

psneeld said:

....but that just me... ...with my thousands of hours of professional water time...but I know that's meaningless to many here....

Click to expand...

It's meaningless to me because I have worked with people who have been doing things wrong over and over again for many years. "It's the way I've always done it." is their response to my question. I remember a "boss" once telling me he had been in the field since before I was "shitting yellow". That was when I wanted to make a repair the correct way and he wanted to do it "half assed". I did it my (the correct) way.

Experience counts, but only if one learns from that experience and supplements that experience with other sources of information.

bfloyd4445 said:

cheap insurance to use the correct part for the job. Thanks for the link, I never thought of mcmasters carr i always end up at grainger

Click to expand...

I can't take credit for McMasters Carr, Shoalwaters suggested it above. I just found the compatibility chart on their website. I use to have their paper catalog when I worked. It weighed a ton!

rwidman said:

It's meaningless to me because I have worked with people who have been doing things wrong over and over again for many years. "It's the way I've always done it." is their response to my question. I remember a "boss" once telling me he had been in the field since before I was "shitting yellow". That was when I wanted to make a repair the correct way and he wanted to do it "half assed". I did it my (the correct) way.

Experience counts, but only if one learns from that experience and supplements that experience with other sources of information.

Click to expand...

yep, used to go fishing with a guy that had a little merc outboard. the first time we went with that engine he fired it up on the ramp while out of the water and i said, hey Allen dont do that youll burn up your water pump. His answer was, yes i know but i only do it for a second just to make sure it will run. later i asked him how he liked the merc. He said it ran perfect but that he could never seem to get more then three or four trips out of it before he had to take it to the dealer to replace the water pump........

bfloyd4445 said:

Hey, that tug is gettin way too fancy.......

Click to expand...

"Tug"?

RickB said:

"Tug"?

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was i mistaken? I thought the pix of the tank minder was from the carquenez coot whom i believe has a tug.
If i am i apolojize. I mean to call a searay a tug might be considered an insult or to call a trawler a tug, same thing. All boats are great no mater what their ethnic background

Greetings,
Mr. 4445. I've been using purpose designated sticks to dip tanks for years. I've never been concerned with fuel contamination and in the greater scheme of things, I think the minuscule amount of potential contamination is of little consequence.

...if it gets past a 2 micron filter, who cares?

The other nice thing about using a dipstick to sound the tanks is that you can slightly hollow the end of it and put some Kolor-Kut on it and check for water.

If I was worried about contamination from a dip stick I would never check my oil...

Gas stations use a dip stick to check their tanks.

RT Firefly said:

Greetings,
Mr. 4445. I've been using purpose designated sticks to dip tanks for years. I've never been concerned with fuel contamination and in the greater scheme of things, I think the minuscule amount of potential contamination is of little consequence.

Click to expand...

RT, i have used them for over 25 years myself but i prefer not to. There is nothing wrong with the practice, its been done since the beginning. This is 2012 and even with the latest and greatest modern technology sticking a tank is still used as a backup

RickB said:

"Tug"?

Click to expand...

A contributor to this forum (not me) coined the term "sail tug" to describe my boat. Regardless, naval architect George Buehler described the Coot as a "... trawler yacht ... designed and built along real workboat ideas."

bfloyd4445 said:

so, when your boat is at rest in its slip the tank is perfectly level and of rectangular configuration correct?

Click to expand...

As I said: "Seems to have worked out OK/good enough."