FUEL TANK installation and Battery managementAlso, it appears that my Pilot is the only one that I have seen with the original steel (18 gal.) fuel tank ! Reason being is that over the years, they all rot out on the bottom of the tank and need to be replaced. My tank included, which developed tiny pin holes and I had them repaired so, I could stay original !
NOTE > that all of the Replaced fuel tanks in other pilots , either had to cut out a piece of the fiberglass trim to reinstall the hose clamps or cut out the fuel fill neck in the gunnels , to gain access to the top hose clamp fitting . The original fuel tank was installed before the top deck & side moldings were installed, leaving no direct access to the upper hose clamp. Removing the original tank was easy, by just cutting the fuel hose and removing the wooden floor trim that keep it in place. I had to invent a custom tool to be able to reinstall my original fuel tank back into my pilot ……. Take note on my Pilot that no piece of added teak trim was used to cover up the cut out section of the deck or side molded fiberglass trim …. I will show pic’s of other fuel tank installations on other Pilots. Note other owners had two choices either cut out a section of the deck/side trim or put in a smaller size fuel tank (12 to 15 gallons). There is another option of moving the fuel tank from its present location to another location ….. I was thinking about cutting out dual hatches on the port & starboard side of the cat bench seating and installing two 12 gal’s fuel tanks under the mold seating. This option would have worked just fine and even increased my travel range with the extra 6 gal’s of fuel, but I decided to stay original…… That is until I added the Bronze Port Hole to the cabin bulkhead wall. So I could see through the cabin when sitting on the custom teak cabinet seat that house my two batteries and a 30 amp plug in adaptor & volt meter gauge unit …. Note > being that the Pilot is NOT a self bailing boat and needs to work off of the batteries for the bilge pump , I had a 110 electrical outlet install so, that a 2amp battery charger unit could keep the batteries fully charged during rain storms , etc ,etc …. I would think if you were on a mooring ball, a solar panel unit connected to the batteries would also work fine, if it didn’t rain for 40 days & 40 nights?
? …… Hum….
?? Thoughts ….. My next topic will be the Location for the batteries on a Pilot !
