Bugs in Fuel Tanks

[stamfordian]

Following on to the post of bugs in fuel tanks, i feel i must reply and have a go at the designeers of fuel tanks on larger boats with large capacity tanks.
As a 17 year old apprentice on large industry(b***)can,t spell again )tanks we ALWAYS angled the tank so 10% of capacity was not usable ie the take off was higher than you could not acctually use that amount, adding to this the ulage was drained say once per fortnight ,ie thats 10% of the tanks capacitythis was mostly water .This was on tanks upto 66000 gallons which were in constant use.Sorry depsol/soltron but the problem is not new ,educating designers is,lets say that fuel tanks were fitted to larger crusers to sit at berthing at an angle so that you couln,t use 10% of tank capacity,AND make it a condition of use that ulage is checked
and drained ,after a period of none use...problem solved...no bugs sorry no soltron.This is not a personal dig at additives but a tried and tested method of stopping "the bug"
P.S. i must stop writing this c*** after a night out

 

[boatone]

You can\'t drain \'ullage\' !!!!!

.....cos 'ullage' is the amount of liquid that's not there - i.e. the empty space above the liquid. Hence an 'ullage' tape is used to measure the distance from tank top to fluid surface.
Virtually all fitted fuel tanks have take off pipes that dont reach to the very bottom of the tank (on my P32 the pipe end is a good couple of inches above the bottom) and you can , of course, drain off the water that deposits at the bottom as long as a drain cock is accesible. Presumably, if this was done regularly, the lack of water in the tank would discourage/prevent bug growth.
We used to regularly use water finding paste when I was on oil tankers to check for water in bottom of tank but this was to ensure calculation of oil quantity was accurate.
BTW, I dont think Dom's ever said bugs were new - only that S*ltr*n was a way of dealing with them.
How's your head this morning <BG>

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[stamfordian]

Re: You can\'t drain \'ullage\' !!!!!

Heads not too bad ,post not bad effort,point is that if boat builders but take off point in bottom of tank this would solve water/bug probs,coarse owners would have to do there bit.. a big job for some.

 

[hlb]

Re: The ultimate Soltron!!

Sorry solution! I came up with this method after sticking 5 gallon of water in the fuel tank.
1/ Take bung out of tank.
2/ Stick thumb in hole.
3/ Send SHMBO for tap with same BSP thread.
4/ Repace thumb with tap.
5/ Add pipe to tap with another tap on end. All going down hill.
6/ open tap on tank.
7/ open tap on pipe for a second or two, to get rid of air.
Water will eventualy find its way down pipe and you can see it. ( If you have used a clear pipe.) So just drain it off now and then.
Or advanced method. Take a pipe from both tanks, join together with a T piece and do as before. Now you can drain water from both tanks or run one engine off two tanks Whilst colecting water at the same time. All for about a tenner!!

No one can force me to come here-----------
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Haydn

 

[DepSol]

Seems like a lot more hassle than dropping a little bit of liquid in with your fuel every time you fill up. All that monitoring and checking and fussing about.

Who said anything about Soltron, I just put an informative message about fuel bugs as not everyone knows how and why they appear. This is just to prep people in front of the MBY fuel additive test. Didnt see Soltron in that text anywhere or did I miss something?

Dom


I just want my boat back in the water ;-(