Fuel pick-up pipe installation

[bromleybysea]

Further to the saga of the Webasto installation, in a previous thread I said that I wanted to take the fuel supply from the engine primary fuel filter because I couldn't get at the top of my diesel tank. Having spoken to the suppliers of the heater, they assure me that it will be OK to install the pick-up pipe, suitably bent, in the side of the tank toward the top. My concern is whether it will leak, especially if the tank is topped-up to the filler which would give a head of a couple of feet. Has anyone installed one of these things in this way, and did it leak?

 

[Deleted member 36384]

bromleybysea my standpipe is fitted onto the top of my tank near the starboard edge of the tank top. The tank is hard against the port hull (I have twin tanks). My port tank is full to the brim as I use my starboard tank all season.

When my yacht is healed over to starboard there is about 1 foot of hydrostatic head of diesel in the port tank pushing against the flange of the standpipe. They are wide and deep tanks. The pressure would be of a similar magnitude to a normal central mounted tank on any yacht around 30' to 40' LOA. My tanks are made from stainless steel.

The flange has not leaked. You can get sealant that is resistant to diesel. My tank inspection hatches are sealed that way.

So to be direct, no; standpipes do not leak when subjected to a head of pressure associated with about 1 foot of diesel.

Although my heater is Mikuni the standpipe is common to that supplied with other makes.

If you go this rout be careful which way you bend the standpipe. I may be wrong but the bottom flange which fits into the tank hole I think is fixed in position. The bottom flange is elongated so that you can fit it through the hole offset from centre. You obviously need to make sure that the elongated part does not foul with the underside of the tank top or any internal radius at the turn of the tank top.

 

[CJU]

I too was reluctant to fit a seperate fuel pick up into our plastic tank for the reasons stated. So I fitted a T piece into the engine fuel line past the primary filter (to take advantage of the filtered fuel supply) and before the lift pump. It worked OK except that when the heater and engine were run together the heater then pumped out black smoke, a sign of over fuelling (I think). So I moved the T to back before the filter and the problem disappeared (so far). I can only assume that some sort of back pressure wave was set up when the valves closed in the pump and forced fuel into the heater. Some thing to be aware of if you go down the same route!!

 

[Ludd]

My solution was to fit a separate tank(25litre plastic jerrycan). Means I can use diesel/red/paraffin as available.Living aboard in coldest conditions this year 20litres =about 10days. Mine is an Eber.

 

[lw395]

Whatever you do it needs to be fuel tight, fuel surging in during filling can add some pressure too.
I actually used a bulkhead 8mm conhex fitting, I managed to insert it from inside the tank with a nut on the outside, by means of a bit of wire fishing around in the filler etc.
This fitting needed a much smaller hole in the tank and had a gasket inside the tank.
I also fitted a shut off valve and an inline filter. The valve makes priming the fuel line (use a syringe to draw fuel up) much easier. Eber's don't like sucking air, they go into shutdown.
I then got a good price for the eber standpipe on ebay!