Twin tank fuel management

**Fubar** · 1st June 2018, 12:55 PM

I'm looking at fuel management with my new Shingleback sill tank in combination with my factory (99' 130) tank. The way I see it I have 3 options to manage the fuel delivery.

1. A electronic 6 way valve for on the fly switching. Being electrical it wont last forever, but should it play up, can be bridged out manually in the bush without too much stuffing around.

Pollak 6 Port Fuel Valve Motorised 42-159 Dual Fuel Tanks – Scintex Australia

2. A manual 6 way valve for on the fly switching & fuel flow lock. I'd mount the valve to the body so it is outside the cab with just the lever inside accessible to me from the drivers seat. Not much to go wrong with this and should last a bloody long time.

6 Port Bronze Fuel Valve| GROCO

3. Or just use a reasonably fast transfer pump (Facet?) and have a single supply line from a dedicated feed tank to the engine, with the other just as a carrier. I had considered using gravity feed (factory to the sill tank via solenoid valve), but apparently this is frowned upon. Having tanks arranged this way will actually allow one tank to be completely drained as long (as the transfer pump can handle running dry) whereas any tank with a pick up will never have it's full capacity utilised.

I can see an advantage in being able to say, leave one tank low to fill up with alpine blend upone arrival to the high country or being able to run off either tank if one is damaged, but really that is likely a rare event.

Both tanks will have fuel guages and run off a single Y filler.

Sort of leaning to the manual valve or the simpler transfer option at the moment.....thoughts gents?

Cheers,

Jason

**Rick** · 1st June 2018, 01:23 PM

I've gone with the Facet transfer method with my Shingleback tank. My factory tank has the extra spigot that I believe was a North America feature to go with a factory sill tank. I just ran the transfer into that. The facet takes about 27 minutes +/- to transfer but I've only managed to get about 62 litres into the Shinglback so far.

**djam1** · 1st June 2018, 01:36 PM

With a TD5 you would have to use the transfer method as the fuel pump resides in the main tank and the return flow will go to the main tank.
Cant see how you would use a Pollak valve in this application

**Fubar** · 1st June 2018, 01:55 PM

Ah my mistake gents....the 130 is being blessed with a 4BD1T.

**djam1** · 1st June 2018, 03:49 PM

Ah sorry I didnt know that in that case you could probably use a length of mulga and a rock
I find that the brass taps eventually leak and become smelly and messy

**87County** · 1st June 2018, 04:01 PM

The genuine Pollaks cost $200 delivered from Scintex, so it is cheap and simple to carry a spare and replace if fails. If it is simply an electrical failure it will continue to deliver fuel from whichever tank it was on when it failed.

IMHO the other simple practical alternative is to have a single facet style pump refilling the using tank from the auxiliary as required - you only require a single return with this setup.

There are cheap pollak clones available from the US where the good 'ol boys like them in their "trucks". The genuine is cheap enough and reliable enough to enable you to avoid them.

I carry a genuine Pollak as a spare.

**roverrescue** · 2nd June 2018, 05:49 AM

On my old tdi motivated 130 I used a Pollack
If you mount the pollack to the tank bracket at rear
You have good access to the hose connections.
Not that I ever needed it in nearly 10 years but I just carried a few joiners and plugs - if the pollack carked link a few fuel lines block a few and voila mobile again.

Steve

**trout1105** · 2nd June 2018, 06:59 AM

A simple transfer pump is all you need but you have to make sure that you turn it off when your main tank if full

**Rick** · 2nd June 2018, 08:39 AM

Originally Posted by trout1105

A simple transfer pump is all you need but you have to make sure that you turn it off when your main tank if full

I bought a cheap (coupla bucks) timer relay off the auction site. A bit of trial and error and it was set for the time I needed. I have it set up so that when you flip the switch it starts pumping right away. When the time I've set is up the pump switches off and a small buzzer goes off to remind me to flip the switch off.

**gromit** · 2nd June 2018, 08:53 AM

My Defender came with a LRA sill tank and a transfer pump.
The sill tank has a gauge and also a low level sensor. A three way rocker switch selects main tank gauge, sill tank gauge or transfer from sill to main. While transferring it shows the sill tank level and a green light illuminates to remind you it's pumping.
If the sill tank gets too low the pump stops (via the low level sensor) and a red light comes on so you don't burn out the pump.

What it doesn't do is stop pumping if the main tank is full.

There are a couple of relays involved and many years ago I did make a sketch of the wiring layout but doubt I could find it now.

Colin

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