covering fuel vent?

[gride300]

is it bad to put tape over the fuel vent? won't be using the boat for a while b/c of school and don't want any agua getting in there. yes i have the cover on, but it rains ALOT in mobile. we usually get the most rainfall in the country.

[ers906]

I wouldn't think so if you are not running the boat. Just be sure to put some fuel stabilizing agent in the gas to aid with the ethanol that is in the gas.

[gride300]

thanks. definitely put some marine sta-bil in already. ethanol sucks. it takes so much GAS to produce it that it does not seem efficient yet. from now on i'll be running ethanol free 89 octane when i fill up from the ONLY place around here that has it.

[DanielC]

The tank needs to vent. The pressure changes in side it with the temperature.

Fill the tank almost full to reduce the amount of air that goes in and out of the tank with the temperature changes. This reduces the amount of humid air that goes in and out of the tank.

[ers906]

The logic of ethanol escapes me. Take that extra corn that is used and start feeding some of these impoverished nations that want to destroy us since they think that we could care less about them. Takes less to convert someone to Anti-American if we are the ones that keep them full and fat. Instead we subsidize our oil companies and provide little overall benefit. Got to love politics (I understand the afore mentioned solution is an oversimplification of the socioeconomic and geopolitical problems of the multinational community, but I just felt like going on a rant)

[gride300]

speaking of fuel, isn't there a better way to monitor fuel level? couldnt they install some sort of sensor that runs the length of the tank so if weight is aft it reads right and vice versa? i use mine as a ball park meter and NEVER trust it.

[DanielC]

Fuel gauges, and fuel level.

To monitor the fuel level accurately is not easy. Think about it, you are trying to measure how high the surface of the fuel is, in a moving object.
If you have ever flown a light single engine airplane, you know you get a stick, and actually take the gas cap off, and put the stick into the tank, and look at the fuel level, and then compare what you saw on the stick to the fuel gauge.

The best fuel level gauge I ever saw in anything, was in a 1965 Volkswagon bug. It had a float connected to a mechanical cable, that physically moved a pointer on the fuel level gauge. As the tank neared empty, the gauge would move with the motion of the car, and I knew I had a fair amount of fuel. When the gauge stopped moving I knew it was very close to being actually empty.

Fuel gauges on modern vehicles are damped so they do not move with the sloshing fuel. Boat fuel gauges are usually calibrated to show less fuel than you actually have, because the alternative will leave you stranded away from port, or your trailer.

[Mikeski]

Actually my fuel gauge reads significantly more than there is in the tank due to the fact that it is shaped like the V of the hull. When it says 1/2 it's more like 1/4, at 1/4 it's more like 1/8. About 2/3rds of the gas is on the top 1/2 of the vertical height of the surface.

My old boat had a tank that was wider in the bottom than the top, it was just the opposite. Our gauges are dumber than we think...