Clogged gas tank?

[lenpilot]

I have a 111 Gallon tank under the deck and It just recently started blocking fuel flow. I replaced the water filter, primer bulb and hose from the water filter to the engine. It will run great for a while and then it sucks the primer bulb flat and dies.<br /><br />Asside from chopping up the deck and replacing the tank are there any suggestions on how to solve this. I have a small access to the hose connection on the tank, A guy that may or may not know to much about the situation took a look and said he removed the pickup tube and saw no problems.<br /><br />We decided the primer bulb was probably bad and replaced it. This worked for about five minutes. (I assume it took this long for the junk to get back into the pickup tube in the tank) I have had this boat about a month now and have run it about 80 miles without incident. all of a sudden after running wide open for about 10 minutes the clog started.<br /><br />I removed the cap (to vent the tank) with no improvement and checked the vent. It is not clogged. The boat will run fine when connected to an auxilary 5 gallon tank. but will only run at idle on the main tank. I can get it on plane and go about 100 yards till it starves out, or I can idle all the way back.<br /><br />I really do not want to remove this tank if possible. Has anyone else had this problem and knows an easier fix? Thanks in advance.

 

[fishthebay]

Re: Clogged gas tank?

Is there any way you can sifin the tank dry? I know it probably has a lot of fuel in it, but that would be my suggestion. If the boat sat a while before you purchased it and gum and gunk built up in the tank thats probably your problem. Running it has stirred up a lot of the sediment and is clogging somewhere in your fuel line.<br /><br />Sifin the tank and start with fresh a tank of fresh fuel.

 

[SS MAYFLOAT]

Re: Clogged gas tank?

Hey Linpilot... I had the same problem with my 100 gallon tank. Check to see if there is a checkvalve on your pick up tube. I tried everything before I figured what was wrong. I could Idle at 1500 rpm, but after that it would go into lean condition and die. Changed my fuel pump, filters, even changed a line that had a slight crimp in it. But I took out my pick up tube out of the tank. IT had a fitting on it that had a check ball in it. It was clogged, cleaned it out (actually I removed it). Now she runs really great like a new motor should. Give that a try.

 

[lenpilot]

Re: Clogged gas tank?

Thanks for the help. I removed the pickup tube and the screen was very clogged. I cleaned the screen and now can blow easily through the pickup tube and screen. I am not sure if there is a check valve, but I can now blow through the line in both directions. I hope to get in some open water with it soon (by the weekend) to check things out. There are at least three filter devices on this engine, which is great but on an older boat, I wonder if there is a better way. I have thought about removing the in tank screen and using a final automotive filter after the water seperater but before the engine. This would facilitate an easy {on the water} replacement and cause less stress on my family. Any thoughts on this?

 

[SS MAYFLOAT]

Re: Clogged gas tank?

On my boat which is a 77, there was a water fuel seperator (about the size of a large oil filter) that is mounted sperately from the engine and before the fuel pump. Since I have removed everything (screen and check ball) I haven't had any problems at WOT. When I got my boat this past spring, it had set for about 12 years. They were nice and gave me the full tank of fuel. I pumped out about 80 gallons of nasty fuel, took out my sending unit which was compleletly corroded away, and then found about 2 gallons of nasty slimmy gook in the area of where my pick up tube would be. Through the sending unit hole, I used a small fuel line hooked to a tank that was then hooked up to a vacuum pump. With this type of purging of the sludge, I had no worry of explosion, but for the extra precaution, I used dry ice pellets to put off CO2 which will push out the oxygen. If you still have major problems of clogging your fuel filter then I would suggest trimming off a little bit of yor pick up tube. I ended up cutting off about and inch so it wouldn't pick up debris that I couldn't get. Good luck