New Fuel Tank Time

CaptainBob

CaptainBob

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Joined
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www.yacht-forum.co.uk
A few questions relating to fuel tanks. Mine is rusted and weeping at a weld....

1. It's a tight space on my Westerly Tempest, 220mm high absolute maximum, 850mm long and 430mm wide. I don't think there are any off-the-shelf solutions which will fit the space. Or are there?

2. If I have to have a custom one made I can go plastic for about £300 + fittings or stainless/mild at some as-yet unknown price probably much higher. Should I go custom plastic or custom stainless? Any recommended suppliers?

3. The fuel inlet pipe is quite grimy. It has about 5mm thick sludge in it. I'll replace this when I install the new tank. The lines from the tank to the engine however seem very clean. I'm guessing I can install the new tank and put in a course of diesel-bug killer, and that'll do me. Or should I also replace the lines to the engine?

4. I removed about 50 litres of diesel from the old tank. 98% of it looked like good clean fuel. 1% had rust particles in and 1% was dark and cloudy. If I use a very fine filter and add some diesel bug treatment - can I re-use this fuel?

Thank you!!
 
I like good thick plastic, a la Tek-Tanks - no worries about corrosion down the line. With red diesel you can see the level through the translucent plastic as well.

£300 sounds like a good price though - Tek are known for not being cheap, and I paid quite a bit more than that (albeit for a very complex shape).

Pete
 
The main suppliers for standard off the shelf tanks are Vetus; Plastimo; TekTanks and CAK tanks. Your problem is your 220mm max height and no-one seems to do one with a reasonable capacity.
CAK tanks have loads of tanks available - they usually supply motorhomes and caravans so may be cheaper!
I replaced my steel 40gall tank with a Plastimo 91litre tank(no problem with the smaller capacity) and with a little reorganisation in the cockpit locker managed to fit my calorifier in as well. There was a lot of wasted space when the boat was built!
Could you fit two tanks side by side?
 
CaptainBob said:
A few questions relating to fuel tanks. Mine is rusted and weeping at a weld....

1. It's a tight space on my Westerly Tempest, 220mm high absolute maximum, 850mm long and 430mm wide. I don't think there are any off-the-shelf solutions which will fit the space. Or are there?

2. If I have to have a custom one made I can go plastic for about £300 + fittings or stainless/mild at some as-yet unknown price probably much higher. Should I go custom plastic or custom stainless? Any recommended suppliers?

3. The fuel inlet pipe is quite grimy. It has about 5mm thick sludge in it. I'll replace this when I install the new tank. The lines from the tank to the engine however seem very clean. I'm guessing I can install the new tank and put in a course of diesel-bug killer, and that'll do me. Or should I also replace the lines to the engine?

4. I removed about 50 litres of diesel from the old tank. 98% of it looked like good clean fuel. 1% had rust particles in and 1% was dark and cloudy. If I use a very fine filter and add some diesel bug treatment - can I re-use this fuel?

Thank you!!
Click to expand...

Hi there, Yes go for plastic.use only the clean diesel and discard the rest. Add diesel bug treatment. Get rid of the feed pipe, use the old feeder pipes.

Peter
 
CaptainBob said:
A few questions relating to fuel tanks. Mine is rusted and weeping at a weld....

1. It's a tight space on my Westerly Tempest, 220mm high absolute maximum, 850mm long and 430mm wide. I don't think there are any off-the-shelf solutions which will fit the space. Or are there?

2. If I have to have a custom one made I can go plastic for about £300 + fittings or stainless/mild at some as-yet unknown price probably much higher. Should I go custom plastic or custom stainless? Any recommended suppliers?

3. The fuel inlet pipe is quite grimy. It has about 5mm thick sludge in it. I'll replace this when I install the new tank. The lines from the tank to the engine however seem very clean. I'm guessing I can install the new tank and put in a course of diesel-bug killer, and that'll do me. Or should I also replace the lines to the engine?

4. I removed about 50 litres of diesel from the old tank. 98% of it looked like good clean fuel. 1% had rust particles in and 1% was dark and cloudy. If I use a very fine filter and add some diesel bug treatment - can I re-use this fuel?

Thank you!!
Click to expand...

This is a job I would dread doing in my Oceanlord. Was there any water lying at the bottom? If so this would have been the long term cause of the rusting I think. Stainless does not last necessarily longer than mild steel either, so I would go with the others on a plastic tank. I have experience of Tek Tanks but not the others - they are a good bunch.

The feeder pipes - they can be partially blocked with sludge, so worth blasting air through them to clean them. Also treat yourself to a Racor 500 series filter, and chuck the CAV job!
 
A Tek Tank would be more expensive than that - as will a properly made metal tank. Would be suspicious of a "knocked up" plastic tank. Tek Tanks will almost certainly have a pattern for your tank. Get a quote from them as they are the best (no connection other than happy customer).
 
My father made the fuel tanks and water tanks for his boat useing grp.I made a water tank the same way;first by laminating up some grp sheet then cutting it up to fabricate the tank then adding more grp to required thickness incorporqating as needed inspection plate and orofices for pipes.
 
Probably not useful, but West of Scotland Engineering did an excellent job of copying the existing fuel tank on my Moody 31 when the bottom rotted out of the old one last year. I had it done in mild steel - the old one had lasted over 20 years; another 20 years may well see me out! I gave it 2-3 coats of smooth Hammerite, but WOSE would have powder-coated it if time pressure hadn't prevented it.
 
CaptainBob said:
The £300 was for a yard chap to knock up a rectangular tank out of 8mm plastic.
Click to expand...

How was he proposing to make the seams? I've been round the Tek factory, and their specialised plastic welding equipment is not something I'd expect to find in a general yard.

Pete
 
They've got some plastic welding kit in the workshop, and a small example box section they've put together. It looks OK to be honest.

Have found another professional metal fabricator who's a "mate of a mate" so might be able to get mates rates, and a quicker turnaround.

Will send out a mail to tek-tanks as well.

Options = Good

Thanks again for all the replies!
 
CaptainBob said:
They've got some plastic welding kit in the workshop, and a small example box section they've put together. It looks OK to be honest.
Click to expand...

Fair enough then. I'm surprised a general workshop has the kit, but if they can do it they can do it. Will be cheaper than Tek anyway.

Pete
 
I did but I don't think they do fuel tanks do they? I found this quote in their catalogue PDF:

CAK TANKS said:
Our tanks are designed for the safe, reliable storage and transport of drinking water & grey
or black waste water, industrial chemicals and much more (not designed for petrol or paraffin fuel storage).
Click to expand...
 
CaptainBob said:
Thanks Vyv, will have a look as soon as I've posted this.

Question.

Why can't I simply buy something like this or a Plastimo off the shelf:

http://www.imsupplies.co.uk/product.php?productid=993&cat=236&page=1

And stick in my own fittings where I want them.

?
Click to expand...

No reason at all why you can't use tanks like that. You will find that Vetus (and Tek Tanks) also sell them. Problem usually is that they are not "boat" shaped and don't fit awkward spaces. You will almost cetrainly find you will lose significant capacity. They are cheaper because they are mass produced through a process called rotational moulding rather than built up to a specific shape. The tanks in my Bavaria are made like that to fit the space - but Bavaria have them made by the hundreds so can afford the tooling.
 
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