New fuel tank

LogoFreak · May 03, 2024, 05:50:16 AM

Yes Ron, will be getting a water maker as well before heading south.

LogoFreak · May 30, 2024, 08:30:27 PM

Some progress pics, painting tomorrow and final install over the weekend!

Noah · May 31, 2024, 09:49:03 AM

Logo-hope you don't have "muscle memory" for the old way, and accidentally fill fuel and water in the wrong tanks. ;-)

LogoFreak · June 01, 2024, 09:19:27 AM

Quote from: Noah on May 31, 2024, 09:49:03 AMLogo-hope you don't have "muscle memory" for the old way, and accidentally fill fuel and water in the wrong tanks. ;-)

lol, that would be bad. I haven't actually used the boat that much and the last couple of season were spent using two plastic outboard tanks with quick connects in the lazarette, so I don't think it's gonna be an issue. The new deck fills are nicely labelled too!

LogoFreak · June 01, 2024, 08:33:54 PM

Painted

LogoFreak · June 04, 2024, 08:15:31 AM

A few more things to do before I install the tank as I won't have access to that area after. Replaced hoses, installing a city water inlet and changing propane hose from tank to stove.

LogoFreak · June 05, 2024, 07:53:01 PM

Tank is in! Gotta still clean things up and do the first fill up.

Noah · June 05, 2024, 08:08:23 PM

Any significant variation in weight distribution (that cannot be mitigated by crew eating a bigger lunch and/or moving positions in the boat)?

LogoFreak · June 05, 2024, 09:20:11 PM

Do you mean compared to oem tank? The extra weight I added with bigger fuel tank is a non issue, it's the oem location for a 46 gallon water tank.

I also added the bowsprit on my boat and I have 350ft of chain in my chain locker.

I've been bow heavy since those modification and when it rained my cockpit would pool water upfront, my guess is with a full tank this won't be an issue anymore.

LogoFreak · June 07, 2024, 08:19:22 AM

Last night I finished installing all the hoses to the tank, popped the inspection cover and filled the tank 1L at a time up to 5L. At 2L of fuel the engine pickup is submerged, so looks like I'll be able to use most of the volume which is nice.

The pickup for the fuel polishing loop gets submerged at .5L so it will really pickup everything in the tank. The fuel polishing pump and filter will be installed on the start board side just behind the locker door in the aft cabin, easy access.

Couple of pics, first one is 5L in the tank and second one is 20L.

Tonight I'm putting steering back together and heading to the fuel station to fill the tank up, I will have exact volume info

Jon W · June 07, 2024, 08:48:04 AM

Really nice work Antoni.

Something to consider since you're planning long cruises - When I replaced my fuel tank I took a photo of the cockpit engine control panel for each gallon of diesel. I taped over the voltage gauge and wrote on it the number of gallons for that fuel gauge reading. I added all of the photos to a Word document, printed it and keep a copy onboard as a reference for me or crew. At the end of the document is some general text describing the tank internals and to use the 1/4 tank fuel gauge reading as the must add fuel reading.

I normally go by 5/8 gallon per engine hour run, but it's a simple backup to create at this point in the project as insurance if the hour meter quits (which mine did once).

LogoFreak · June 07, 2024, 10:35:05 AM

Thanks Jon!

Yes, I went a step further. I have two separate senders, one feeding the analog gauge at the engine panel and the other connected to my Victron cerbo gx which is also connected to my data backbone. So my i70 displays and chart plotter will have accurate data on exactly how many litters (or gallons or percentage) are in the tank.

Your suggestion is still valid, using the calibrated data from the cerbo I can write down the exact fuel remaining at 3/4, 1/2, 1/4 tank on the analog gauge.

Noah · June 07, 2024, 10:44:55 AM

Some more observations from California:
1. Excellent work!
2. We don't do liters (too much math)🤦
3. Our Marine Diesel is dyed red, more festive!? And, easier to see when spilled on deck too!

Patches · June 07, 2024, 11:07:07 AM

I like that you appear to have left enough room in your tank design to get at the rudder stuffing box. While I appreciate all the capacity of that rear water tank in our Mark 1-1.5 boats, it does make access to things like the rudder stuffing box a pain.

I replaced mine with a 23 gallon version which is much easier to remove as well as access things on the sides and aft. Since I've removed my holding tank in favor of a composting head, I'll be buying a new fresh water tank from Ronco which is a drop in for the holding tank. That will add back some more freshwater tank capacity (30 gallons or so).

Isn't it great that Catalina built us such a great boat which we can pretty easily customize for our particular needs/wants!

Patches

waughoo · June 07, 2024, 12:38:47 PM

This is some EXCELLENT design and fabrication work. I love how you are turning this production boat into a custom set up (as patches pointed out).

Jon... the senders Antoni has in his tank are not an infinite resistor style like the ones originally designed and installed by Catalina. They have reed switches in the center tube and the float has a magnet in it. Each switch when closed presents a higher or lower resistance value to the gauge. The up side is that there are no moving parts exposed to the fluid. However, one can't generate the fuel level chart in the same way you did for your boat as the reed switches only activate at a given flueid level height. I absolutely LOVE your chart idea though. I might need to consider that for my boat!

Noah... the red dye in the fuel is there to represent that the fuel is "off road" diesel. When diesel is sold at a fuel dock, it can be sold without a number of the highway road taxes. As an easy verifier, the fuel sold as off road is dyed so that it can be noticed when used in on-road applications. All that said, I like your festive idea better :-)