fuel storage

[bobnoffs]

this has been brought up many times before and i only want to ask a question ,not start a debate about regs., etc. currently i am using an auto fuel pump to pull fuel from a 55 gal drum. i have a filter on the fueling nozzle and it works well but it is slow. less than a gal. a minute. i am wondering about the manual crank type pumps that can be put on 55 gal tanks. anyone have experience with them? i see electric pumps for fuel but the ones i would afford are not for gasoline.

[rv7charlie]

During the aftermath of Katrina, with power off for about a week, several of us on my home field used a Harbor Freight manual rotary pump to access the avgas in our community fuel farm. Never was a problem for us, but I'm not telling you you should do it. :-)

Charlie
Slobovia Outernational (MS71)

(In case you're wondering, generators don' t make any more power on avgas.)

[rv7charlie]

If you want to go to a little trouble, you could pick up 2 or 3 of the little in-tank turbine pumps & array them on a 'stalk' so they will fit in the bung hole of the drum. You'd have to extend the pickup tubes in the ones farther up the stalk, and 'T' the lines back together, but you could double or triple your flow. You can find them on ebay for $10-$15 each.

Or do the same trick with an array of knock-off cube pumps, but outside the tank.

[airguy]

You're spending a lot of money to have an airplane - just spend a few more bucks and get the correct fueling apparatus. You can justify it by looking at XX more dollars for the right pump, divided by YY dollars per gallon saved versus 100LL, time ZZ gallons per hour of operation.

When you get tired of punching buttons on the calculator, then go order the right pump.

I get it, I do - I spent the first 100 hours of my airplanes life dealing with 5-gallon jugs - but life is too short for that noise. Now I've got a 125-gallon stainless tank that I can forklift into the back of my pickup and a 15gph 12 volt DC pump. That will last me 4-5 weeks and it's easy to fill, and easy to transfer to the airplane.

[cguarino]

This one works great.

https://www.northerntool.com/shop/to...4943_200434943

[mfleming]

Back in the day, I had a 200gal tank in the back of my PU.

I used a 12v GasBoy pump with two particulate filters and a Go/No Go water filter. This set up worked great and I successfully pumped over 17,000 gallons of auto fuel into my C-180.

The pump rate was plenty fast and I never had a problem with contamination.

[bobnoffs]

and now the rest of the story............. i have always kept my 55 gal drum on wheels in the hangar as i would much rather top off tanks under a roof that in who knows what at the pump. the 5 gal cans are a pain to keep the drum filled. i recently brought the drum home and i secured it on a small utility trailer. all of a sudden it's painless to go a couple miles down the road for a fill. i am looking at a 3.5' x 4' trailer ''kit '' for under $300 that is rated way over what i would put on it and it is small enough to slip in the hangar. i am not sure which direction i am going to go but i think i am done with the 5 gal cans. i really appreciate the input on pumps as that is the other part of the story.

[Electrogunner]

I mounted a 125 gallon tank on a harbor freight trailer with a 12vdc pump on it. Look on Craigslist or the like for used transfer tanks. Just clean them out real good and run the fuel through some filters. I have about $500 in my setup.

[N941WR]

Can you make a rig to lift and store you 55 gallon drum above the level of your wings and let gravity do the work?

You could put it on casters, so you can move it, if needed, and rig it so a hand cranked winch lifts the drum.

[rv7charlie]

I've *read about* people using air to transfer fuel from storage tanks, but I've never seen it done. I can think of a couple of things that would worry me about doing it.