REMOTE FUEL TANK

[Charles uk]

It doesn't matter which fuel connectors you use, just pick the cheapest, I don't use the ones shown, that was just to illustrate the concept, I use Suzuki ones, as I already had some & they don't protude as much.

As long as they have a 1/4 inch BSP thread on them, the brass boss in the bakerlite fuel cap is big enough to contain the thread & the existing air vent groove will still work.

I never bothered with the fuel gauge, too much trouble, but beware the float might well hit the top of the tank before the tank is full, & it;s going to rest on the the bottom before it's empty, those coloured fibreglass rods that they use on fishing floats might make a good fuel level indicator stick on the float.

[Henrik]

50 years ago my father bought a 40+ which was fuelled by a pressurized system. It is shown on the nostalgia pages.



The motor was sold without the standard tank, it was replaced with a carrying handle and the remote tank. The price of the motor was reduced with something like 15 shillings because of this. The external tank was much more expensive, so the total cost was higher than the normal arrangement. The capacity of the tank was 10 litres ("Tian" = "The tenner").
The remote tank was pressurized with the pump you can see in the filler hole, the pump was made almost entirely of brass to avoid explosion.
The tank was stored under a bench in the cockpit of the sailing boat with a rubber hose leading up and out to the motor. A few strokes of the pump kept the motor running for about an hour, when it started to splutter you quickly pumped a little more and the motor kept running. We used this arrangement for almost 40 years.

But

Who wants a pressurized container of petrol in the boat? Today I can't understand who anyone could even think about such an arrangement. Now I am using the motor with a standard tank.

Regards,

Henrik

[electrosys]

I was musing over how to indicate the tank's contents - went over the usual sight-tube ideas etc. - then started thinking of a vertical float switch, using reed switches with a magnet embedded in a cork, to switch on an LED ... then thought - why not use that switch to turn-on an SU fuel pump (of which I bought several, years ago) instead ?
So for my little ol' fishing boat - that's that sorted - using Charles' modified filler cap, with a vertical float switch underneath, driving an SU fuel pump. No further need to modify any part of any engine - just one modified filler cap, which can then be swapped between engines as required.

And should anything go pear-shaped - simply replace the filler cap with a standard cap, and carry-on as before. Simples.

[Charles uk]

SU fuel pumps what a wonderful device, I've crawled, usually in the rain under mini's, frogeye's, lotus 7's to clout those bloody things only to smile when the tick tick started, in my Saturday night pulling shirt, they're almost fond memories 35 years later.

I think I'm going to stick with the bladder when I don't have a Seagull fuel pump.

I didn't invent the fueling system it was a Kiwi or Bermudian idea that was born somewhere in the mists of Seagull racing lore, as was the rise & fall transom bracket, the twin cylinder 40+ & the twin carb LLS, I just pinched it!

When a car runs out of fuel you just pull up on the side of the road, but when your SU fails because it's got salt on it's contacts, that you won't hear because of the song of Seagulls, you might be rowing home quickly before it gets dark.

Good luck.

[The Tinker]

Same connections as Charles. Drilled a small hole beside fuel fitting, glued in a piece of copper tube with good epoxy glue, as a slide. Used a piece of brazing wire about 90mm long connected a cork to one end as a float, soldered it between two copper washers to hold it in place, put it thru copper tube and glued a bead to the top. Presto one fuel gauge. Two things cork needs to be small enough for top to be easily screwed on and off, also cork needs to be big enough to float when bead and brass rod are attached. A little experimenting needed here. Make sure brass rod has a little clearance in copper tube, this will also act as tank breather. KISS principle works here

[timer]

Cheers Tinker - thats exactly what I was thinking of - it only needs to be pretty crude to tell me when the tank is down or give me an indication that the tank is around full. Glad to hear it works - many thanks