Fitting a remote tank

[Tony]

I have a Yamaha 4hp four stroke which I use on my CBL "Four Sisters". It gives plenty of oomph for shifting her along at six knots or so if I've got the tides going the "wrong" way. Reverse gear is useful as it's too big to spin around in the outboard well and the best feature is the connection for a remote tank which
saves all that mucking about with cans and funnels on a long trip.
I also have a 3.3hp Mariner 2 stroke, an excellent engine which shoves a much heavier Lugger around at the same sort of speed but only weighs half the 20+ kilos of the Yamaha. I can live without a reverse gear but would really appreciate a longer range than the titchy built-in tank can provide.
Has anyone succeeded in pumbing in a remote tank to this kind of gravity-fed engine?

[Roge]

I have a 4hp 2 stroke Yamaha and keep a 12 ltr remote tank in the Starboard locker and thought about plumbing it in, but decided against it and get it out and connect it when its needed it sits under the tiller and does not go very far. I have thought of a strap to retain it but not yet found it necessary. I use the gravity tank if just shifting on and of the slip/jetty.

[david]

Hi Tony,
            We rigged a two horse Honda for the 20 mile channel crossing to an island here by removing the small air valve in the petrol tank cap and feeding the gas line through it into the small tank. You could also drill a hole if you have a spare cap. Fuel is pumped into the tank using the squeeze bulb usually used to prime the engine. Simple and effective. We averaged about forteen squeezes per hour on the journey. No trying to fill a hot engine in an unstable wave environment with open cans etc. much safer.

David.

[Tony]

Hi, Dave.
Thanks for that. I have a spare fuel line with pump. I will experiment! 
I take it that you remove the ball valve fitting at the "engine" end of the fuel line and replace it with a simple tube.....or do you fit a "female" connector to the filler cap to keep the fuel line seal?
Fourteen pumps for an hours run seems fair enough and  a much better option than topping up with can and funnel in a chop! There might be better pumps for the job but if it works why make things more complicated?

Do you have an equally good idea for a fuel gauge?  (I'll steal any ideas, me!)

[david]

Hi Tony,
            I kept it as simple as I could. No connections at the engine. Just one line with the pump. One end in the gas tank and one end to the engine. I just fed the tube through the hole, in the filler cap. The female connector is the hole left by the valve! (some put one of those plastic washers on the other side that you see on some of those fancy jugs to keep the straw from falling out!). We also had one person that drilled the hole so they did not have to remove the ball valve. They just screwed a screw in to fill the hole when they did not need it. Just unscrewed it when they did.
 No magic for a fuel gauge. Purely low tech approach. Remove the top and take a look

David.

[Tony]

Hi, Dave.
Thanks again.
Not quite sure about the breather valve. Mine is far too small to take a fuel line?
 Any chance of the odd photo?

[david]

Hi Tony
              Sounds familier. The set up I discribed is on a friends motor. Some of the other folks ran into the same thing as you. Their solution was to have two caps. One with the breather drilled out to the correct size for the tube and one for regular use.

As a side note. Most switched to larger engines now with remote tanks and reverse gear!

D

[Tony]

Hi David.
I won't be replacing the little 2 stroke anytime soon. It's just too good! It only gets used when I'm on Paxos - unless Niko is moonlighting as a fisherman out of season - so it is likely to last longer than I will!
Drilling out a spare petrol cap? Having a fuel line sticking out of the top might make raising and lowering the engine awkward, so the caps will need to be quickly interchangeable.
Hmm. There's a certain amount of déjà vu about visiting a dealer to ask for a spare petrol cap for a Mariner outboard. You see, I used to drive a Skoda Estelle - you must have heard all the jokes.
(It wasn't such a bad car, if you put a paving slab in the front luggage space to hold the front wheels on the road. I had a 130e with the rally engine - really annoyed boy racers when it burnt them off at the lights. )

[david]

Hi Tony, under the "better late than never" heading. Hear is a photo of one way to set up your extended fuel system. This one shows the fuel cap off, maybe an issue in larger seas with fuel slush in about!

[Border Terrier]

Slight drift but associated.

Is a 2.5 outboard happy on a 20ft Cruiser?

[Peter Cockerton]

I think the libray article covers all the points on outboard choice, here is the shortcut.

http://www.swallowyachtsassociation.org/?page_id=347


My preference for my BR20 GRP is a 4hp with a gearbox capable of reverse. The Suzuki 4 HP starts easily, internal and external petrol tank capability, the prop drops easily through the flaps in the outboard well, not to heavy, and lifts and rotates to one side so the tiller doesn't catch the cowling.

Peter Cockerton

[Jonathan Stuart]

There was also a useful discussion about outboard motor sizes in the following forum topic:

http://www.swallowyachtsassociation.org/smf/index.php/topic,248.msg708.html#msg708

I think the upshot was that 2.5hp is technically fine for the 20' boats but folks are split as to whether they prefer the lightweight of these motors or would sacrifice lightness for the certainly of having more grunt to push them through strong foul tides.