www.iFourWinns.com

Next question, can anyone with a 298 put more than 3\4 fuel in their tanks, yesterday was the first time I have ever let my tanks get to empty and she would only take 255 litres even after waiting 5 minuets to let the tanks settle,

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Sixtus
2000 Vista 298
NSC, Ottawa Ontario

I filled up yesterday.....all the way up with no issues.....other than the cost of course.

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Current Boat:
2004 Sea Ray 320 Sundancer "Nauti Luvin'"

Previous Boats:
1999 298 Vista "Seas The Day"
2008 H200SS "Nauti Luv"
2006 Tahoe Q4

Doesn't the 298 take 70 gallons per tank and you put in 67?

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Current Boat: 2000 Four Winns 298 Vista
Previous Boat: 2000 Carver 406MY

Yeah, sounds like you were down to 3 gallons in a tank left.

Are you saying both tanks only took 255 liters? Or 510 liters to fill both tanks?

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2000 Four Winns - 298 Vista

255 for both tanks. I believe the electrig guages are not accurate. They show 3\4 when they are full

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Sixtus
2000 Vista 298
NSC, Ottawa Ontario

The fuel sender is relative indication of your fuel available and isn't a calibrated instrument. Some adjustments might be able to be done by your Four Winns dealer by bending the fuel sender float arm.

What were your gauge readings when you went to fill up?

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2000 Four Winns - 298 Vista

Both, right on E

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Sixtus
2000 Vista 298
NSC, Ottawa Ontario

To state the obvious, something is wrong. With how much fuel you added, you should only be at 1/2 full, not even 3/4. Does fuel flow out of each fuel vent as it nears being full?

I'm going to venture to say something is just up with your float and fuel sender. You're probably only half empty each time you're filling up and need to have it adjusted. Are you tracking your hours per gallon at all?

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2000 Four Winns - 298 Vista

Both tanks spit out the vents. I gathered as much. 140 gallons = 530 litres.
How big of a deal is it to make the float adjustment?

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Sixtus
2000 Vista 298
NSC, Ottawa Ontario

Fuel sender floats are notorious for being wrong. Some are crap right from new. Others tend to get saturated with fuel and don't float at their proper level, giving an erroneously low reading. It's not an impossible job to replace the senders. They're held into the top of the fuel tanks by a couple of screws around a flange. Getting to them is the challenge. Mine would requires arms like stretch armstrong on someone the size of a midget to reach...

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-Bill Kearney, 2005 348 Vista

It is odd that they are both off in tandem??? Maybe start at the gauges and replace one to see if it changes anything?

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2000 Four Winns - 298 Vista

+1 on replacing one of the gauges sounds like it's much easier than trying to fix the floats.

Gauges aren't cheap.

Floats senders work by varying resistance. What you could check is that the float senders are delivering proper resistance levels. Which you could probably figure out by looking up the gauges from their vendor's website. Measure that the resistance is appropriate for the known level in the tank. There's no real way to adjust a sender once it's wrong. I think most of the time it's typical to just replace it. Most are installed by a flange into the tank. Unbolt the flange and take out the whole assembly. But you don't know until you look at the tank.

I don't know that I'd do the job while on the water. Wave motion sloshing the fuel around is not a good idea. Not with a full tank as that would splash out fuel directly. But one with less in it would cause fumes to develop faster when splashing around. This is a MUCH, MUCH greater danger. Fumes are FAR more explosive than just raw fuel. Better to do the job while on land.

If you can find a gauge cheap then it certainly wouldn't hurt to start there. But I'd still suspect the senders.

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-Bill Kearney, 2005 348 Vista