The Lady in Red (Diesel Tank)

Now that many of the structural projects were done, I was catching a second wind.  It was just past mid-summer (for our neck of the woods) and folks at the club were already talking about the Down the Bay Cruise in September and the subsequent Pig Roast.  Now that The Beast was in, I wanted to fix the fuel guage on the newly painted aluminum fuel tank.  The original 12 gallon tank had been reduced to 8 gallons by the first owner who wanted more storage room.  Cruising the northern Chesapeake, an 8 gallon is ok with a 10hp Westerbeke.  The Beast burns around a gallon an hour when iron sailing and there are plenty of marinas in the area.

Figure 36 - Fuel Guage
 12gal to 8gal

In opening the fuel guage by removing the four outside screws, I had to play around with a pair of needle nose pliers in bending the stem of the float just right so that when the fuel tank was full, it would register 3/4 tank.  It took awhile but the resurrection process was moving ahead at hull speed.

Figure 37 - The Full Monty