De-Carb with the second fuel tank??

[fishingdan]

I do the de-carb thing once per year. It just dawned on me (I'm not always the sharpest knife in the drawer) that I have a second fuel tank on my boat that I never use. My boat has two 36 gallon fuel cells. I use port tank nearly all of the time because that balance the boat if I'm out alone. I usually carry about 6 gallons of reserve fuel in the second tank.

Instead of lugging out a separate tank for the de-carb routine, I was thinking of just using the second tank. Is this a bad idea?

 

[hkeiner]

Re: De-Carb with the second fuel tank??

One disadvantage I see with using a large built in tank is that it is hard to know exactly how much fuel is in the tank and thus hard to know how much SeaFoam to add to the tank to get the desired mix (say one can SeaFoam per gallon of fuel). On my boat, I have a hard time figuring out how much fuel I really have in my tank based upon my fuel gauge on the dash and I can't easily look in the fuel tank or use a measuring stick. I use a portable 3 gallon tank for decarbing.

If you can know and control how much fuel you have in the tank, say by running the tank dry and then adding a measured amount of fuel, then I figure you are OK and fortunate to have a second tank to do this with.

 

[Texasmark]

Re: De-Carb with the second fuel tank??

I like fresh fuel and what I heard sounds like the fuel in the starboard tank never gets used which would make me leery about using it for decarbing (or anything else for that matter) in addition to not knowing the mix ratio as "h" said.

I'm lazy so I don't decarb. I just keep seafoam in my tank and I'm not real careful how much I use. I may add as much as a half can to 10 gallons of fuel if my hand doesn't stop pouring before the brain says stop.

I don't go through a lot of gas so this is no big deal financially even though the stuff costs around $6 a can here.

Mark

 

[fishingdan]

Re: De-Carb with the second fuel tank??

Thanks for the feedback guys. I think you are right. I believe there is 6 gallons of fuel in there, but the age and quatity could vary. I guess use the portable tank is more predictable.

I would love to keep that tank full, but that is a lot of extra weight to be carrying around.

 

[hkeiner]

Re: De-Carb with the second fuel tank??

Seems a solution would be to switch to the "secondary" tank from time to time. Just fill it up partially so that you don't have to use it too long. I would expect that would keep the fuel in the secondary tank fresh enough to avoid problems from old gas. For the gas you have in there now, you can always drain it and use it in a car (presuming that it is not premixed with oil).