Diesel Tank Fill Guage
20 May 2017
• Marina Real
by Keith, writing from home in Tucson
Through its life so far, our sailboat has not had a fuel gauge. There's a stick with marks that you can slide down the fill hole and it wil let you know about when the 55 gallon fuel tank is full. The stick also evidently was used to determine when the tank was close to empty. Not a sufficiently reliable method for family cruising in a place where fuel is not always readily available. It worked for 30 years evidently, but I wanted a proper fuel gauge. The technology and mechanics exist today and I figured they should be readily available in Guaymas, a commericial fishing hub of Northern Mexico. Sure enough, as this photograph proves, Manuel has installed an electronic fuel gauge. He said he removed the fuel from the engine in order to ensure that the float mechanism was set properly inside and no waste from the port cut into the aluminum tank was left inside after the installation. Manuel reports the guage is set to show empty at 2 inches above the tank bottom, which is rounded. In this way a reserve is built in. If you look closely, the electronic engine meter is showing 46 point something hours on this engine. For diesel, that's just breaking it in, and that is indeed what we have been doing is breaking it in and getting it aligned and getting it ready to run, properly and safely, really. Its first cruising test is coming.
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