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