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Fishing inside of my boat.

Posted: Sat Mar 28, 2020 9:58 am
by mickkk
Long post, can skip ahead to the end if you like.

For the last year I have been having intermittent issues with my stabi getting starved of fuel. Primer bulb would suck flat, and i worked out if I turned the primer bulb around and blew air back into the tank it would come good again.
Narrowed it down to being the fuel pick up getting blocked.
My tank runs under the console and under the rear transom. So to remove it I would have had to de rig everything on the console to remove the tank.
I had tried all sorts of things to fix it. Cycling the fuel through a filter, emptying the tank. Put a inspection cam down, but couldn’t really see anything.
About to pull the pin on getting the boat mechanic to pull the everything off the console to pull it out and knowing that this would cost probably close to 2k. I thought I’d try the camera again.
Pumped out the tank, let the last bit evaporate. Then put the camera back down. I still couldn’t get enough light to see where I need to.
I asked the missis if we had any small tourch to fit through the filler hole.
She came out with a battery operated candle that you get at the Xmas carols.
I made a bungee out of zip ties to lower inside the tank (to hopefully remove it again)
It worked well, and after not too long I could see something. Bout the size of a 10c coin.
I shoved a zip tie down the fuel pickup and it could be moved.
Stoked I finally found my problem, I then still had to work out how to get it out.
It went pretty smoothly in the end, I made a vacuum with my blower (swapped around to suck) and reduced it to a small bit of pipe. Shoved in the filler port, along with the zip ties hanging out with the light. Down, around near the mystery object.
Second run I got it, and managed to keep it on whilst pulling it back out. To say I was ecstatic would be an understatement, I had been depressed for some time trying to sort this.
Now, what the hell is it. And why had it only been a problem for the last year, not the 14 years before that.
Then i worked out what it was. It must have been the perfect density to not float but not sink. Just flutter around and be sucked up by the pickup.

Moral of the story:
Be very careful when adding fuel additives into your tank. About 18 months ago, I put a small bottle of fuel conditioner in my tank. It was just a small single shot bottle, I opened the lid and poured it down the filler. The little seal that meant to stay in the lid must have went in, and caused a lot of headaches. I’ll be very careful if I add anything next time.

Re: Fishing inside of my boat.

Posted: Sat Mar 28, 2020 10:50 am
by Maark
Thanks for sharing Mickkk, lesson learnt here

Re: Fishing inside of my boat.

Posted: Sat Mar 28, 2020 12:00 pm
by Matt Flynn
Great tip, bet you aren't the first.

Re: Fishing inside of my boat.

Posted: Fri Apr 03, 2020 10:52 am
by dicko1980
I had a similar issue years ago in my 5M Hooker. The boat has two tank fill points at the stern so you can quickly fill the 200L tank without breather issues. One particular day I removed the filler neck cap fitting and accidentally dropped one of the self tapping stainless screws into the tank. Due to the boat being fibreglass and the tank not accessible for inspection I had to accept the screw was not coming out anytime soon.

Not long after this happened I took one of my mates out for a water test of the new 75HP 2 Stroke Merc that was fitted. Cut a long story short, the boat would accelerate for some distance and then snuff out. I would then have to prime it and get going again. It progressively got worse that day so I hung around the local marina so if it broke down, at least it wasn't far to go home'. Eventually the motor got to a point that I could not prime fuel. Frustrated I somehow got the motor going again and idled my way back to the ramp with the occasional stall.

During this period of time I told my mate about what happened with the screw, but he said there was no chance it could pick that up and if so where would it go in the fuel line. Well I can tell you where it went alright. Once home I removed the fuel filter but it was clean. I then proceeded to trace the fuel flow path back. It taken long to find the issue. The vacuum of the motor had enough force to pull the screw up from the tank floor through the pickup before it neatly jammed inside the fuel inlet side of the filter housing. It was much similar to how a needle valve works.

You can only imagine my dismay when a few weeks later the end of the jiggle hose fell off inside of the tank.

Re: Fishing inside of my boat.

Posted: Sun Feb 07, 2021 11:27 am
by theodosius
Ingenious!

Re: Fishing inside of my boat.

Posted: Sun Feb 07, 2021 4:58 pm
by tangels
Nice work bro.. saved some $$ there...