Wellcraft Boat Owners Forum

I have run the boat from an external fuel tank to determine if I have a tank/fuel system issue. I do. A few questions about the fuel tank/system. Can the fuel pickup be removed? Is there a screen at the end of the pickup that may be plugged? There are two fuel pickups. I have checked for an anti syphon valve in the pickup that feeds the fuel water separator, and there is none. I replaced the very corroded tank vent and that did help a lot. The symptom is that the boat decelerates (when at running speed) after 30 seconds to a minute. This does not occur when running from an external tank. What other items in the fuel tank could cause this behavior? I have checked for water via the separator, and it looks clean. I have heard that there could be sediment in the tank that is sloshing around and prevents full flow to the pickup. Any information on how to fix this problem would be appreciated.

tomkaz

If it's any thing like mine the fuel pick up is part of the tank, I would suspect that there may be a sock on the end of the pick up. You might try pulling the fuel sending unit, drain the tank and look in it with a mirror in an extension to see what you've got

Thanks CptBill,
After I pulled the fuel intake out of the tank, I discovered that the intake tube has a screen that fits into the top of the tube. The screen was completely plugged. In addition, there was a piece of plastic stuck in the intake tube itself. The debris in the screen looked like a rats nest. It included stuff that looked like hair, metal, cardboard and something that looked like heavy fuzz. Check out the attached images. I have no idea how all the stuff got into the tank. When I removed the port hole that enables a view into the tank, it looked very clean. There were some small bits of something or other visible, but nothing that seemed detrimental.

Wow, it does look like some sort of critter got to it, you have to wander where all that came from. Was it sitting for an extended period of time at some point, but then how would something get in there? best guess would be it just disintegrated from age. Any way glade you found it