Fuel gage malfunction

Mar 28, 2018
14
Catalina 310, hull #315 Toronto
Thanks to everyone for you responses and your patience. ;)
I now know what needs to be done and, hopefully, how to do it. For the record, I believe I only have the one standard 27 gallons fuel tank.
 
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Likes: jssailem
Oct 22, 2014
20,995
CAL 35 Cruiser #21 moored EVERETT WA
Orientation is dependent on the type of sending unit. The old style arm unit needs room for the arm to float up and down. Then new Wema-USA design is vertical tube.http://www.wemausa.com/
The float is a donut riding the tube with incased micro switches. It still has the standard universal screw pattern to match your tank. It just does not need the orientation to make sure the float arm is free to rise and fall.
It was an easy and quick install. Need to know the depth of the tank. And decide on the level in the tank that represents empty. My unit is 1 inch short (estimated 5 gallons) of the tank bottom. About a 5 hour reserve if I know when the gauge indicates empty.
 
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Likes: Alansails
Aug 22, 2017
1,609
Hunter 26.5 West Palm Beach
There are two standards for senders & gauges. The north American standard is backwards from the European standard. If you find that the gauge works backwards, you may have a mixture of the two types of parts.
 
Nov 18, 2010
2,441
Catalina 310 Hingham, MA
finally got the boat 3 weeks ago
Congrats and welcome to the 310 club. I'm sure Curt or Alan will add in with the details on how to join the 310 International Association. I'm the technical editor for the Mainsheet articles and Bob is the editor for the sailing and cruising write ups. We are always looking for articles. I have tackled a lot of the maintenance and repairs you might have to do and most are covered on my blog (see the link in the signature). We love our 310 and live full time on it. They are great boats and will hold their value very well if you keep up on maintenance.

Apologies for a noob question, but how did you know the gauge was malfunctioning? Mine seems to be stuck near 3/4 full and I am slowly getting worried although we've not motored a lot (finally got the boat 3 weeks ago).
So you are going to hear this name a lot, Mainesail. He puts up so much content on boats that its hard to hit on a topic that he hasn't given us some guidance on. He has a forum section here under featured contributors and has his own site at Marine How To.com. On this subject, here is an article on testing a fuel gauge sender unit to see if it is still working.

By the way, our boats burn very little fuel. About 3/4 of a gallon per hour under most conditions. So it's not uncommon for the gauge to barely move in 3 weeks of weekend use.

Is there a way you guys can think of of checking the fuel level without having to go down that locker? I can hardly fit in there... :(
As Stu and js have already pointed out, use a fuel log. I do both to make sure my gauge is accurate. But we went 2 years without a working gauge, including doing the entire east coast down to Florida, using the fuel log method.

the PO has hardly used the boat and so the diesel fuel in the tank is quite old, by his own admission. He has heartily recommended that I burn as much of it as possible before re-fueling, which makes sense
With fuel that's been sitting your two biggest worries are algae growth and water. There are two different types of fuel additives to help deal with this. Personally I like Biobor products. I use the Biobor JF for the microbial growth and another product I can't think of the name of right now for water treatment (I will look when I get home and post an update). Another option to consider is a professional tank cleaning. It may be worth the few hundred dollars to have a fuel polisher come out.

except that now I am worried about running it all out and having to bleed the engine of air.
Our engines are technically self-bleeding. Just push the key forward and the electric fuel lift pump pushes fuel through the system expelling the air. I would caution against holding that key switch forward for too long because it also activates the glow plugs. So I use a 30 second approach. On for 30 and then rest for 30. Or you can add a wire and switch to make the fuel pump only run with out the key. I'm actually working on moving the fuel filter and adding a second lift pump for polishing and priming. I'll post on it when I get it worked out.

Good luck and fair winds,

Jesse
 

Gunni

.
Mar 16, 2010
5,937
Beneteau 411 Oceanis Annapolis
After dealing with an unreliable VDO fuel gauge system and replacing two swing-arm fuel sender units in 3 years I went looking for a better solution. As described by Maine Sail, I tested, researched and switched from VDO to the WEMA system and a sealed WEMA-style sender unit from KUS. Paired that with a new gauge in compatible Ohm range from Faria, cleaned up the wiring, replaced soldered connections with heat-shrink crimps and Bam! A reliable fuel gauge system. KUS sells a custom fit sender that fits your measured tank depth. The thing is so accurate it actually depicts the fuel level movement in the tank when the boat bounces about. It is how I know the system is working.
https://marinehowto.com/testing-a-marine-fuel-sender/
(Consider making a donation to his website for the technical support)
 

leo310

.
Dec 15, 2006
635
Catalina 310 44 Campbell River BC
We had the same problem, what I did was add Rislone Diesel Fuel System Treatment to a full tank (twice) and the gage started to work again to the full mark.
 

KZW

.
May 17, 2014
831
Catalina 310 #307 Bluewater Bay, FL
Universal 25 XPB. I last filled the tank on 21 Nov 2016. OEM tank installed by Catalina, 27 gallon capacity. Fuel gauge now reads 1/4 full. In that time I've run the engine 50.1 hours and sailed 239.8 hours (not running the engine). So, assuming there are 6 gallons left in the tank (I've not measured), the burn rate was 0.42 gallons per hour. A considerable number of those hours were getting out of, and back into, the marina, at much less than full throttle. However, it gives you some idea of fuel burn.
 
Oct 3, 2011
825
Anam Cara Catalina 310 Hull #155 155 Lake Erie/Catawba Island
Mike, Welcome! thanks for buying a Catalina 310, Hopefully you will be as Happy as we are with ours!
Glad you are here on SBO, We are so pleased with the Great Help you can get here. There are No dumb Questions and If you run into an issue somebody here has also done that!
We burn 1/2 gallon an hour with our diesel but may burn more depending on conditions , when I plot out fuel usage I use 3/4 gallon per hour.
When we first bought our boat we ended up with Dirty fuel which came to our attention after engine dying on a 260 mile trip just 3 months after launch!! We ended up getting our fuel polished which cost us $400. but it resolved all our of fuel issues after that and filter changes!
Please consider joining the Catalina 310 IA, upon doing so you get Mainsheet Magazine and a 50% discount off BOATUS you can do so by going to www.catalina310.org and Curt Sawyer is our secretary/treasurer.
Jesse is our Tech Guru and lives aboard his 310 in the Caribbean!
Lots of Great People here with excellent advice and Catalina Yachts is also very responsive!
Welcome!
 
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