Fuel tank, custom or regular six gal. plastic?

John Robinson

John Robinson

Well-known member
I have worked out almost every small detail of my mini-Honker (Andrew's term)in my mind over many a night as I'm going to sleep over the past year, but the one item I have put off is the fuel tank. It will for sure go forward like Andrew's or Eric's Scaup, but can't decide whether to just build a shelf like Andrew for your standard outboard plastic gas tank or build in a custom tank of one sort or another. My buddy ordered a prefab, build in plastic tank out of a catalog and installed it under the foredeck of the Snow Goose we build a few years ago.

I am leaning towards the same idea hanging it from the deck and bulkheads with some brackets and steel straps. I want to leave as much room under the tank as possible for anchors and such. We have a standard deck fill, I don't know what he did for venting. With the standard tank and bulb type gas line do you ever have trouble feeding gas from front to back? Is gravity feed an issue or does the motor fuel pump do the job regardless of where the tank is located? All ideas are appreciated.

Thanks,

John
 
John,

My boat is as long as yours and I have no problems with the line pressure. However for the first 2 years, I suffered from a pressure problem, but that was because I had a small leak where the hose met a plastic fitting. I didn't realize it, fixed it and haven't had a problem ever since. I have two bulbs on my line... one up front with the tank and one back with the engine.

Building in a tank is a time saver, but make sure you can remove it because a few years from now you'll want to get up there for something someday.

Boat looks great, have fun fairing the mini-Honker...

Andrew
 
I know nothing about all these custom boats you guys build but I can't imagine putting all that work into a boat and then having an ugly red can sitting on the floor. However, if you do decide to go with the standard plastic can let me know as I've got one sitting in the garage that I'll never use.
 
John,
DaveP has posted about his custom tank in his new boat (started a now boat build thread). Conatct him and see what his thoughts are.
 
Believe it or not I am very happy with the plastic tank on a shelf in the front compartment of my BBIII. A simple bungy cord and a eye hook and it pops right out to fill up when needed.

A custom tank would be cool as well but for the money I just didnt think it was that cool.
 
Brandon is right about the money and cool factor. A custom built tank up against the foreward bulkhead will allow for more usable storage volume under the deck. A plastic tank of any kind is not an efficient use of space, but is much cheaper than a custom tank.

I wish I would have gone with a custom tank on the BBIII, but I had a hard time making up my mind about getting it out eventually. Still thinking about a smaller 3 gallon flat tank up there since I don't use the very forward area of the storage. Maybe two narrow 3 gallon flat plastic tanks hung from the deck. What to "improve" next.
 
I assume there must be a reason that the majority of folks put their gas tanks in the front of the boat. Is this because there is already so much weight in the rear from the engine?

I'm thinking of putting the gas tank in the rear. I'm only contemplating a 4 or 5 horsepower engine. Given that, I don't imagine it will require too large a gas tank (and, therefore, not too much extra weight).

Still, if you folks can share the pros and cons of front versus rear of boat gas can storage, I'd be thankful for you're input. I certainly don't know much on this topic.

By the way, John, if this is a hijacking of your thread, I'll be happy to move it to a new one. Just let me know.

In any case, thanks.

Steve
 
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No problem Steve, one question leads to another. I think with a smaller boat and very light outboard like you are describing, you should use a coventional portable fuel tank. You can more easily trim a small boat by shifting people weight around the boat. There has been a lot of discussion regarding some of the Devlin designs porpoising at speed and shifting weight forward seems to help this. My buddy's Snow Goose has a 19 gal tank forward. He had planned on taking multi day camping trips with it.
 
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