Fuel readings on volvo penta display

[Mainy]

Anyone help. We have a pair of D4's on our Sealine F34. The information screens for each engine shows a variety of different engine specs. The fuel level information, however, is showing that the starboard engine is using more fuel than the port. Currently in our berth it shows 10% whilst the other shows 34% but they were both fuelled up to equal levels at last fuelling. When we took the boat out earlier this figure rose to 27% when underway whilst the other rose to 36%. The fuel valves are set to take equally from each tank. Could this be a leak, dodgy sensor, filter problem, etc. Any advice on where to look greatly received as we are worried we may be losing fuel and are planning a 150 mile trip soon.

 

[rafiki_]

Welcome to the forum. You will get lots of good advice on here. If you were losing fuel, I expect you will be very aware. If leaking into the bilge, you would see it and more importantly smell it. If your bilge pump were pumping overboard, your marina would be on your case.

 

[jfm]

Crucial thing to establish (from the digi gauges i hope)is whether the two engines are burning same lph when synced and in cruise mode. If they are then your problem is just plumbing or tank sensor. Is each engine both drawing from and returning to its own tank with no crossover? Do you have a genset or heater that is seeing a lot of use, because these draw from only one tank

Also I vaguely recall that you have to calibrate the fuel senders in order to get the right % display on the n2k / j1939 which is what your digi gauges are showing. If you don't do this one gauge might say 10% and the other 20% even when they have identical fuel level. You can easily prove this by opening the balance valve then seeing the % readings. If different % readings after the valve has been open for 10 mins then you need to re do the sender calibration. The commissioning dealer would normally do the initial calibration

If you had a leak you'd know from the smell, so don't worry about that if your boat doesn't stink of diesel

 

[volvopaul]

Same type of thread a few days ago.

You can either remove the senders and calibrate the gauges using the sender in 4 steps or measure the tank depth, buy a spare sender using that to calibrate the gauges. Read the manual it shows you how to do it or download the installation manual from Volvo, you can do a single step calibration when the tank is full but it's more accurate to do it in the stage process.