[s.a.charlie]

look at the point where the gas fill hose & the vent hose enter the tank in the back. the tank air locks!!! if you have a fitting welded to the front of the tank for the vent it will solve your problem.

[depman160]

Well, not sure how, but my issues seemed to be resolved the other day when I pulled in to the gas dock and easily pumped $100 into the tank with no trouble....
My family used to have issues like that with a 27-ft. Regal we used to have. One person would stand as far forward on the bow as possible while one fueled.
Was the only way to get gas in that boat....everytime for 3 years!

[MAJIC]

OK, maybe a little... I have no problems with fueling this boat! I had an old Monterey that I had to get people to sit up front to get the flow better and I had to undo the vent line from the tank and blow out water/fuel that got stuck in the line. I reworked the line so that nothing could settle in it. Don't know if this helps!

[Snowaterdude]

Originally Posted by mariah bob

I have never been able to fuel on the water. If i go to a marina, the pump will constantly click off like tank is full. Fuels fine on the trailer. Mine is a 96 Shaba 200

I have the same problem here. If I try to top it up at a Marina, the nozle clicks all the time. I think it's the way the boat sits in the water, nose up. I believe the fuel tank is tipped into such an angle, that fuel sits at the filler neck of the tank itself when the tank is 3/4 full or more.

On the trailer, I will fill it up to the top. Unfortunatly at the marina, you can't stay in the boat while fueling. Therefore, having a few bodies on the bow to allow the boat to level up, is out of question.

I stopped last Sunday at the marina to fill up after cruising at 35 mph for 1 hour. All she managed to pump in, was $5.00 (not even 6 litres) worth with fuel and it was overflowing thru the vent. An hour riding??? I should mention that my engine is the 5.0LX (GM 305). I had to burn more than just $5.00! Gas gauge fluctuates so much, I can't rely on it. As I said, the boat sits nose up in the water, so fuel reading is not accurate even when the gauge needle stabilizes. I seem to get a more precise fuel reading when sitting on the trailer. Right now the gauges reads half full, that's after 2 hours of cruising at 35 mph.

After topping it up with $5.00, I left and cruised for another hour back to the trailer. I took it home and didn't fill it up again. I am curious to see how much fuel I will put in it at the pump. I am assuming a good 70 litres for 2 hours of cruising. My fuel tanks is 40 gallons (151 litres). I will find out this weekend when I top it up. I will update this post after I top it up this weekend....More to follow.

Rick

[rpeterson]

I know in my case s.a.charlie is right on, my boat wouldn't fill at all at the pump, one person got in the front and it filled right up so just a little change in the way it sits made all the difference. If you are filling on the water the weight of the 5 gal gas can may be just enough to cause that.

[blockp]

Originally Posted by Snowaterdude

Gas gauge fluctuates so much, I can't rely on it.

This won't help you get the tank full when on the water, but there's a sticky thread about fixing the jittery fuel gauge. Well worth the couple bux and the time to fix it.

[Snowaterdude]

I have seen that and I will definitely do that fuel gauge mod. But first I have to install the smart tabs and then a "battery switch".

I have a second deep cycle battery which will go in the boat as well. With a battery switch, I will be able to select which one of the two I wanna use.

I wanna make sure I don't get stranded in the middle of the lake after a day lounging around listening to the stereo.

[blockp]

Did you already buy your battery switch? If not, I strongly recommend an ACR rather than just a switch. No messing with switching from battery to battery. The "house" battery runs all your accessories and the starting battery is used to start the boat. Once the boat is running and a positive charge is being produced, then the ACR automatically applies the positive charge to the low battery.

This is what I installed. It was $95 on ebay.
http://bluesea.com/category/2/productline/overview/329

The trouble with switching from bat 1 to bat 2 is that if bat 1 is dead, and you move the switch to bat 2 to start the boat, once the boat is running, you shouldn't change the switch back to bat 1 because you can fry your alternator. Also, you don't really just want to put the switch on "combine" because as soon as you do that, you begin discharging the good battery to the dean battery resulting in less power to start your boat.

Not saying the switch is a bad thing. It definitely gives more piece of mind than carrying just one battery, but the switch requires more thought than the ACR.

[Snowaterdude]

First time I hear about this "ACR" relay....I will definitely look into this.....How hard is it to install? I know how to install the "battery switch". It's pretty basic. There is a battery switch you can flip from position 1 to position 2 while engine is running. It's called the"Make Before Break" switch.

Does the ACR install the same way? It sure sounds like a better set up. Thanks for the info! I was going to buy the switch tomorrow. I will investigate into the ACR relay now.

[blockp]

If you found one that is ok to switch while the motor is running, that might be the absolute easiest way to go.

The ACR is not much harder to install, but does require a bit more work. The only real difference would be that you need to separate your accessories from your starting system. To do this, I ran an additional wire from the back of the boat to the ignition relay on my breaker panel. Other than that, just hook the batteries together through the ACR and switch and make sure that only one positive goes to the starter and the other goes to the ACR. It seems like there was another wire somewhere, but I just used the diagrams I found online to get mine going.

I just cleaned my office and threw out my drawings of how I hooked mine up, but if you need a more precise explanation, I could verify my wiring hookups on the boat and give you a better description.