430 Carver Diesel fuel transfer switches

[x2ryder]

Hello
I am new to the board. I have a 1996 430 Carver cockpit with Cummins Diamond series diesels in it. The boat has 3 fuel tanks. Port Starboard and Auxillary. In the aft closet there are 4 handles for transferring fuel. Currently they are all turn to the starboard side of the boat. The only other way to turn them is pointing up. Can anyone tell what these handles do in when turn in either direction?
Thanks

[rkrumm]

Hi x2ryder,

I have the same boat, year older. With the handles turned to the side, you are currently setup for each engine to draw and return fuel from it's respective tank (ie Port engine-port fuel tank). If you move handles to straight up it will use auxiliary tank. Make sure you always have draw and return the same for each engine. Fuel valves point at metal end, not yellow handle end. Hope that helps.

Randy

[Viper]

Agreed. The panel could have been labeled better to make it easier to read.

[km1125]

Qr Bbpost
With the handles turned to the side, you are currently setup for each engine to draw and return fuel from it's respective tank (ie Port engine-port fuel tank). If you move handles to straight up it will use auxiliary tank. Make sure you always have draw and return the same for each engine. Fuel valves point at metal end, not yellow handle end. Hope that helps.

Really? Then whomever designed that panel should be slapped into next week!!

If the metal end points to where the valve is set, then they should have added a little indicator under that nut. The LABELS then should have been put so that the indicator pointed DIRECTLY AT THE LABEL. The way it is now I could EASILY see someone lining up the yellow part of the handle with the label based on which selection they need to make.

I would also say that the supply and returns should be ganged so that they both switch, however....

With the switches setup this way, it is also possible to transfer fuel from one tank to another while underway? Let's say I have 50 gal in each tank but want to empty the AUX tank... can I put the supply for each engine on AUX and the return for port on PORT and the return for starboard on STARBOARD and effectively move all the fuel out of the AUX tank until it's empty? (well, almost empty of the engines would stall!)

[rkrumm]

Not sure if that would work as I am not sure how much comes back to the tank during operation. It might depend on the RPMs and load. I guess in theory you could. I have a fuel transfer system on my boat for that function. Not sure if it was factory standard installed, a factory option, or aftermarket. Haven't actually used it yet.

[nightsky]

I have the 390 and it was just as confusing for me when I first bought the boat. In fact I thought I was running off tanks I had just topped off on my run bringing the boat home for the first time. Nope I was running off stern tank instead and ran it dry. Took some effort after I realized what I'd done to get the engines going again.

[rkrumm]

Had a similar incident nightsky, where I assumed both engines running off respective fuel tanks but both were running off auxiliary tank and ran the tank dry and had both engines stop running. Not a fun day.

[Midnightsun]

Regarding running the wrong tanks dry due to improper fuel selector valve placement. Do you not have fuel gauges for the main and aux tanks? My boat has 4 fuel gauges (2x main, 2x aux) which I thought a little odd but after reading this thread I can see where they would come in handy.

[rkrumm]

Oh I have them, I was just too new to the boat to realize what they were telling me. I just thought I was getting really good mileage on my main tanks on the limited hours we had ran them.

[nightsky]

As for the gauges, mine only has 2, one of the gauges doubles as the gauge for the auxilary or Stern tank . To confuse matters more one of the gauges was not at all and I didn't know if I could trust the one that was working.