Refilling gas on your own dock

[Chaws]

We have a lake place that has no steps and we can drive an ATV right to the dock on our yard. We have a pontoon and a fishing boat with each one having around 20 - 30 gallon fuel tanks. Without spending an arm and a leg, or having to hold 5 gallon cans of fuel over the water, what are you all doing to fill your boats?

[mpilot]

[quote="Chaws"]We have a lake place that has no steps and we can drive an ATV right to the dock on our yard. We have a pontoon and a fishing boat with each one having around 20 - 30 gallon fuel tanks. Without spending an arm and a leg, or having to hold 5 gallon cans of fuel over the water, what are you all doing to fill your boats?[/quote]

We use a siphon (link below). Our fuel fill is half way up the panel on the back deck of the boat so I can set the cans on there and it takes about 8 minutes to empty around 11 gallons of fuel. I just do something else while it's transferring. If you hold the can at an angle near the end it will suck nearly all of the gas out, if not you can just pour the last little bit when you put the nozzle back on it. If you fill is on the side of the boat I've seen people put towels or small tarps down on the back seat and run the tube from the can to the tank.


Siphon pump:
http://www.homedepot.com/p/American-Spe ... /203635079


A friend has a big boat that holds a couple hundred gallons and a pontoon so he has rigged a 30 gallon tank up in the bed of his truck. He goes to the station to fill that up and then has an electric pump to get it out. He has a long dock so he has one hose he leaves on the dock and then a hose that comes from the truck that is shorter and has a quick disconnect. If you have a local company that deals with bulk fuel hit them up for some older hose and maybe even pumps and nozzles. For their purposes if the outer sheath gets compromised at all they pull the reel off and replace it. You might can get the fuel hose like he did at a low price and cut the "bad" section out. Usually it's just a crack in the outer sheath that causes them to have to replace so for your purposes no big deal. You can find fuel tanks on craigslist from time to time, or buy a new one for around $240 but I have seen used ones go for around $100. You will need a way to transfer from truck to ATV or a way to get a truck near the dock. This is by far the most expensive, but the quickest way to transfer fuel.

Fuel Transfer Tanks
http://www.northerntool.com/shop/tools/ ... esRank%7C1

DC Fuel Pumps - some can be used with a fuel caddy
http://www.northerntool.com/shop/tools/ ... esRank%7C1

Another option if you can get your tank above the fuel fill on the boat you can use something like the fuel caddy below. If it's level you have to constantly pump the handle which gets tiring, or you can look at some fuel caddy's that have manual pumps or you can add a DC fuel pump that connects to your boat battery.

Fuel Caddies:
http://www.northerntool.com/shop/tools/ ... esRank%7C1

[jadeboy]

Remember all the big tanks get heavy so if you have a 11 to 15 gallon tank to fill you need to get it out of your car or truck some how 7 pounds per gallon

[Bamaman]

I've got one of the 14 gallon rolling Gas Buddy plastic cans that I roll to my boathouse. There's no reason you couldn't put a couple of them in a yard cart and pull them to your dock with the ATV.

I drop my pontoon boat below the level of the deck, and put the Gas Buddy on a park bench. Gravity fills the boat's tank in about 10 minutes. It sure beats holding those modern day EPA rated 5 gallon Jerry Cans for 12-15 minutes each while the gas trickles out.

It feels good to save $21 per can over buying gasoline on the lake.

I feel sorry for the 5 neighbors that put mega hours on their 35-40 foot offshore racing boats. I'd hate to think how many gallons of marina gasoline they must be going thru every weekend @ 35-40 gallons per hour when running fast. It might be cheaper per hour to fly a LearJet.

[mpilot]

If you do need to fill from a regular can you can drill out the back and put a valve stem in it and pull the Schrader valve out of it to vent and it will empty really fast. I did that for the old boat. It would dump a 5.5 gallons in around a minute or slightly less.

[TDJ2591]

[quote="mpilot"]If you do need to fill from a regular can you can drill out the back and put a valve stem in it and pull the Schrader valve out of it to vent and it will empty really fast. I did that for the old boat. It would dump a 5.5 gallons in around a minute or slightly less.[/quote]

I added yellow vent caps to all my 5 gal gas cans. Just search eBay or Amazon for gas can vent caps. They're cheap on eBay, easy to install and really speed up emptying the gas can.

[jrolin1]

Like was already said - a siphon pump. Very easy. In my case I have a hill so the 5 gallon cans are easiest to get on the dock. Then the siphon makes it set and wait a couple of minutes.

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[diver165]

I used to dock my old 24ft Chris Craft. We would put gas cans in a yard cart. It would fit 4, 5gal cans nicely. Plus, the cart also was nice to haul stuff back and forth from the car/truck to the boat. So it was a must have in my opinion.