Carver Owners Forum

I went to the dock to fill up but we could not get more than a few gallons pumped into a 3/4 empty tank. Even the slightest amount of gas pumped in gushes right back out.

I have read some suggestions on cleaning the fuel vent which is locate near the tank. Mine is a a small protruding vent with 2 circular mesh screens. I am unsure of how to access this to remove the mesh screens. I cannot access it from within the engine compartment. Do I need to remove the vent to clean it? Do the mesh screens pop out? I have read about some people using compressed air or shop vacs.

Has anyone else had this issue? If so how did you fix it?

thank you much!

Please whatever you decide, NO shop vac.....KABOOM......remember you are dealing with gasoline fumes here ( explosives ) and the vac has an electric motor.....first just try some very fine wire. like what is in a twist tie to clean the screen and have a look at your fill hose as it runs to the tank, over time they can develop a droop in a spot from a broken support perhaps......good luck and be very careful.

Plugged vent is my guess. Clean it out with a wire or disconnect it and blow it out.

bud37 wrote:Source of the post Please whatever you decide, NO shop vac.....KABOOM......remember you are dealing with gasoline fumes here ( explosives ) and the vac has an electric motor.....first just try some very fine wire. like what is in a twist tie to clean the screen and have a look at your fill hose as it runs to the tank, over time they can develop a droop in a spot from a broken support perhaps......good luck and be very careful.

No worries on the shopvac use here!

My biggest issue is the removal of the vent itself or the screens. I was hoping someone had a similar vent to mine because I cannot see the vent from the inside of the boat and on the outside it only has 2 small circular mesh screens. I am afraid to ruin it by popping these out. I was thinking the vent may be able to be unscrewed from the boat but am cautious about putting pliers to something I know nothing about.

After researching this it appears most people go the solvent and comressed air down the line route. I am just unsure of how to make it past the mesh screens without destroying anything(which I am quite capable of doing on boats I have found).

Thank you for the help

Honestly I see no reason to remove the vent, just clean the screens and visually check the vent hose from the hull to the tank ( kinks etc ).......you can stick the screening back in there if you happen to remove them ( little silicone ), but as I said check the fill hose....should be a fairly downhill run to the tank, lots of time a support fails or the hose gets kinked etc.........now after all this is said, you are sure the tank is only a quarter full ????.

IMO, you should not stick anything in the vent. Use compressed air to blow into it but if there is something in the line, it will end up in your fuel. The best thing to do if confirm the line is blocked is to remove the line from the fitting and the tank and blow air through it. There should be an access to the fitting either by removing a panel or looking behind a cabinet. If an access has to be cut then that's what needs to be done. To remove the fitting, there will be a nut holding it in place inside the hull.

The line from the fitting should first go upward, loop, then down to the tank with no dips or low points below the tank or fuel will collect there and block off air flow. The reason for the line going upward first from the vent fitting is so that any water entering the fitting will drip back out/overboard rather than running into the tank. For this reason, some vent fittings will have a built in 90* elbow for the purpose of connecting the line on top rather than straight out.

As Bud mentioned, you need to confirm that the tank is in fact 3/4 empty. You can't rely on a possible faulty reading from the gauge. Considering your fill hose is likely 1.5 - 2" in diameter and the fuel nozzle is maybe 1" at the most, there is plenty of room for air to move through that line while you're filling the tank. Conditions are everything of course so anything can happen. Having said that, it's typical for a full tank to overflow through the vent when while overfilling. Again, all depends on the geometry and design of the boat.

Try Carb Cleaner and compressed air. Most generally when filling up, gas will spill out the vent before it comes out the fill port. You may have to pull the vent hose off.

Definitely check to see if the tank is full, as Viper notes. You may not have a problem.

However, if you do:
On the early models like mine, that screen is pressed and glued in place. You can stick something in there and pull it out, but then you have to figure how to make it stick back in there. I pulled mine out at one time to clean them and got them to stick back in for quite a while, but now I've lost 2 screens (out of 10, two are on each vent, and I also did the vents for the potable and waste tanks). I made s couple replacements but they're not as good as the originals.

The new ones have little spring rings holding the screens in place, so you can slide those clips out and remove the screens.

You also might have a problem with your fill line. I've known two people who had to replace their fill lines that were collapsed internally. You can try a fish a snake down there to see if it's plugged. Do you know how long it is and how many curves are in it?

km1125 wrote:Source of the post.....You also might have a problem with your fill line.....

+1

Follow your fill and vent lines from the tank up and see if a previous owner installed spill check valves in either. If there is, they could be faulty. If they're working and you stick anything in there, you will wreck them and possibly create another problem.

NashvilleMartini wrote:Source of the post....Even the slightest amount of gas pumped in gushes right back out.....

Will the fuel stay at the top of the deck fitting or does it go down and eventually disappear? Does this also happen when you squeeze the trigger just a little so the fuel comes out very slowly? If so, you're full or there is a block in the filler hose.

It took a few hours but I finally got gas into the tank. The vent line was indeed the culprit. I tried a can of compressed air first. Nothing. I don't think it had enough power to do anything.

Next I tried to remove the vent tube from the vent itself from inside the engine compartment. That hose was on the fitting so tight it would have required me to cut the hose for removal. While fooling with this I had an idea to make an adapter for the end of my air compressor I use to blow up rafts that I keep on board. Using a plastic tube and tape I got an airline run from the compressor into the vent by removing a mesh screen(these were clean as can be by the way and not the problem). I opened the fuel cap and blew air through that vent line until I got fuel coming out of the tank. At that point I figured I cleared whatever was in the line. I went to the fuel dock and slowly pumped in about 75 gallons. Who knows what was in there, could have been fuel, something from an insect, etc.

I appreciate the suggestions and help that allowed me to get this fixed.

Viper wrote:

km1125 wrote:Source of the post.....You also might have a problem with your fill line.....

+1

Follow your fill and vent lines from the tank up and see if a previous owner installed spill check valves in either. If there is, they could be faulty. If they're working and you stick anything in there, you will wreck them and possibly create another problem.

NashvilleMartini wrote:Source of the post....Even the slightest amount of gas pumped in gushes right back out.....

Will the fuel stay at the top of the deck fitting or does it go down and eventually disappear? Does this also happen when you squeeze the trigger just a little so the fuel comes out very slowly? If so, you're full or there is a block in the filler hose.