[chimchim]

ran the boat 'out' of gas the last time i was out. i have a 33 gal. under console fuel tank that looks to have about 5 gallons left in it. should have been more than enough to make it back to the marina i was headed to. was on my way back when the motor started cutting out, so i killed it and pulled the motor up to check the prop since i thought maybe i had something fouled in the prop. prop spun freely, so i checked the fuel bulb and sure enough it was soft. looked at the tank and there was probably 4 or 5 inches of gas. my guess is about 5 gal. this may be common knowledge, but does the fuel pickup not necessarily rest on the bottom of the tank? i don't really expect to get every last drop of fuel from a tank, but i figured i would get closer than i got.

 

[Sonnysmarine]

Depends on the type of pickup tube. Some are on flexable hose, with a long screen, but when fuel gets to the top of the screen it stops sucking. Most are never all the way to the bottom, about 1" or so off. Have also found a stuff in the pick up tube and would only pull fuel till it got to the stuff. Have found WOOD, caps off oil bottles, & more in the screen- pick up tube. You can buy new pickups tubes at different lenths, and make it go to the bottom, but will end up sucking more stuff off the bottom.

 

[chimchim]

thanks for the info. didn't consider it picking up junk off of the bottom of the tank. not a big deal to me to leave it now that i know where the empty mark is.

for anyone dumb enough to run into a similar situation, i was able to get a little further by pumping the fuel bulb, running until the line of fuel ran out and repeating. this only worked a couple of times until there wasn't enough fuel near the pickup for the bulb trick to work anymore.

 

[Newbomb Turk]

If you have a sending unit, remove it and look inside the tank to see how far the pick-up is off the bottom of the tank....

 

[tcjay2]

I had the identical thing happen to me with my current boat. The factory installed a 15 gallon fuel pick-up tube on a 20 gallon gas tank. When we pulled the tube, it was about 4 inches shorter than the required length. Installed a new tube and the problem was solved. I would guess this is probably your problem.

 

[o_brother]

ChimChim, My cousin had a similar problem last year with his boat but it would die out at just below half a tank. Bulb would get soft and you could hear/feel air going though the bulb. Long story short, he pulled the pickup tube out and it was split in the middle. Thus allowing for the air. He found out after measuring everything that the tube was too long and was curved, putting the tube in a biend on the bottom of the tank. Over time the stress caused the crack in the tube were it was bent. He replaced the tube so that when its bolted back in place, the end was 1/4 in. off the bottom. He didn't use a screen so the tube is open ended... Has not had anymore problems in about a year now..

Mike