Zen and the art of sailboat maintenance
Take the best option on sailboat maintenance. Do it yourself, with the help of others.
Fuel tank cleaning through small hole
This is the plan I have for later this afternoon, as a way to clean my fuel tank.
The fuel tank has not been cleaned for a while. Hence there is this sludge or slime that sit on the bottom. It sometime break loose and would enter the fuel line as a mass of thin sludge that is combined into a big lump.
This would sit on top of my CAV filter, and block the filter top surface area. Reducing the filter flow capacity by a large margin. Which will in turn stall the engine.
After happening twice, where I had to replace the filter element before the engine would go again, I think it is time for me to do something about it.
The plan is to use the oil changing vacuum pump and its inlet hose to suck the bottom of the tank. This hopefully will get rid of all the sludge, without cleaning the tank properly. As the access hole is too small to do anything meaningful. The opening is only about 2" in diamter. It is where the VDO fuel level sender is bolted onto the tank.
I will let you know the result in the future.
Howard
The fuel tank has not been cleaned for a while. Hence there is this sludge or slime that sit on the bottom. It sometime break loose and would enter the fuel line as a mass of thin sludge that is combined into a big lump.
This would sit on top of my CAV filter, and block the filter top surface area. Reducing the filter flow capacity by a large margin. Which will in turn stall the engine.
After happening twice, where I had to replace the filter element before the engine would go again, I think it is time for me to do something about it.
The plan is to use the oil changing vacuum pump and its inlet hose to suck the bottom of the tank. This hopefully will get rid of all the sludge, without cleaning the tank properly. As the access hole is too small to do anything meaningful. The opening is only about 2" in diamter. It is where the VDO fuel level sender is bolted onto the tank.
I will let you know the result in the future.
Howard
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I finally pulled my finger out and did this clean out.
The result was fantrastic.
Before the clean, using a torch, I can see the water to fuel interphase and see that the water was black. Most likely from the algae etc that grows in the water.
After the clean they were all removed. And the oil vacuum pump collected some fuel and most of the water and gunk.
Since the reason for my engine to conk out was when a layer of this algae get sucked in and blanket my CAV filter, I believe that largely the problem has been eliminated.
In my view it is not critical to leave some particles in the tank (if there are any), as they will get filtered out by the fuel filter normally. Not the Algae, which tend to cover a large area of the filter and limit the maximum flowrate going through the filter.
So, this method is proven to be a success. If you have engine problems and it tend to conk out, and it is due to the Algae covering the fuel filter, please give this method a try.
Jan 26, 2009
Suky
Feb 17, 2009