Well I just added another new fangled gizmo to my boat in preparation for some circle boat "tracking" with it at the Big Wake Weekend coming up. I call it 'tracking' because I am not racing... I have completed the 12 step program for former racers and I promised not to ever do it again.... or so I tell myself!
I have been chasing fuel issues with this
thing since day 1. First the crappy 660 center squirter carbs that leaked all
over the place and then the broken tanks and lines and a plethora of just bad
stuff on the boat. The electric fuel pump that was installed, had been causing me some problems by letting air gaps into the lines and
causing me to stall out. I changed lines, filter(s), routing etc, etc, etc and
still nothing worked.
So I have finally changed out the electric pump to a
mechanical pump and found that it now doesn’t pull from the tanks evenly like
the electric once did. Weird I know but that’s the reality of it all..... So I had to finally put in a tank selector valve.
Well being me and being that I didn’t want just another regular old tank valve with
all the fuel lines all over the boat I decided to install an electrically
operated solenoid selector valve that switches between tanks on-the-fly. Cool yea?
This is a typical 3-way WVO/SVO 12 volt valve with 3/8" ports (-6 AN) I found this one on eBay for about $70 with free shipping. This one is aluminum and there are others that are brass and stainless. They must have Viton seals for gasoline use. These are typically used for Bio-Diesel engine systems...
Not that this hasn’t already been done, there are products
out there by Parker, Imco, Eddie Marine, CP, and Glen I think that all do a
great job but at an enormous price to go with it! It’s incredible! I used to
design and build hydraulic and pneumatic valved machines and these valves aren’t
that expensive! where’s all the cost???? So I set out to find my own stuff and
build it myself.
I already had the wiring and the switch for the fuel pump
that was in there, so it was just a matter of adding the valve and connecting
up the lines…. This unit also has an intrinsically
safe wire connection cap. This is important because you don’t want any vapor
ignitions in your bilge area…. Very critical!
So I made a simple aluminum bracket (by hand, sorry no bling here) for it and mounted it all up and it’s good to go
just as planned. Now when that Fuel PSI needle starts a bouncing around telling
me Im gonna be sucking air soon I can just flip the switch and have a whole
nother tank of fossil fuel to burn up and add to my carbon footprint without
missing a beat!
With the valve, a length of molded SPO cord and couple of AN
fittings I am into this thing for under a $100
Nice!
I have had no problems with the -6 AN size fuel lines and the valve with a mechanical fuel pump since I installed this unit. Has work like a charm!!!
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