Tankage and usable fuel

Hmmm.. I don’t know if that’s a good idea CR. Our Detroit’s can take a lot of fuel abuse. Never had mine shut down due to fuel snot, which I’ve had plenty of.
It always shut down my skinny fuel line in rough weather on my Generator , but it’s pretty good now after multiple seasons and many sporty trips about .
My larger Detroit mains large fuel lines with the large Racors etc filtered things out very well. I’ve always got home with no shut down .
Not a great idea to suck up stuff from the very bottom of the tank.
When are you ever going to get the fuel that low ?!?

Did your Detroit mains ever shut down on you because of clogged , snotty filters?
I bet no.

Let it be as Sir Paul would say.

IMO, you have to run the boat every day to achieve totally purity.
Did your mains ever shut down due to clogged fuel plumbing?

Yes or no CR ?

Yes , that’s my point. 71s rule.
I’d say you’ve got a better hand on it since that photo.

Let it be.

Something else is lurking around the corner waiting to break. Save your energy for that.
Start em up, throw the lines and take her out for a run, where ever it be.

Isn't that what fuel polishing systems are for?

Lol, marketing nonsense.
You’ve got to run the vessel, use fuel.
If they sit for long periods of time, no polishing system is going to work.
Other than the Racor filters and the secondary engine factory filters.

I agree with the thought process, CR. I think my answer would be to have a fuel polish/transfer system that pulls that unreachable fuel for cleansing as well as the ability to transfer it to another tank where it can be used. Three tanks on board here combines for likely 150 gallons of fuel beyond reach. When I transfer fuel at sea, I'll stop with half a tank moved to allow the rest to churn before I move it. I'm running it through the filtration set up for polishing, and I want all aliens removed, if possible, from the tanks. That's just a dedicated second pickup to be used by the transfer/polish system. With that in hand, more than half of that unreachable fuel can be accessed for the systems.

I also hate the inaccuracy of the fuel gauges. I realize it's near impossible to get accuracy given the angle of the tanks changes with the attitude the boat is running. My fuel gauges start to read near the empty mark with boat sitting level as a pass half fuel used. At normal cruise which has the bow fairly high, they read better but still off a ways. The fuel senders are all in the aft side of the tanks given the fuel runs aft when bow is up at cruise. The only good thing is my new CAT's have a pretty accurate fuel used reading so as long as I remember to reset when taking fuel I've got a better sense of what I've used. Of course, this doesn't account for gen fuel but that's pretty minor.

My engine room tanks sit higher than my cockpit tank. In a pinch I could align the tanks such that the engine room tanks would gravity feed back to the cockpit tank. But this would still only allow the tanks to be drawn down to the where the pick up tube ran dry.

The pick ups need to be 1" above the bottom to allow the fuel to flow to the pickup. Put a shopvac end in water in a bucket, then put it close to the bottom of the bucket, if you get too close it causes a vaccuum which sucks the end to the bottom of the tank.

I think the angle cut will make it suck air sooner with the fuel at a higher level. Every tank pickup I've seen has been flat at the bottom and usually 1" above the tank bottom, for a reason.

On a tank related subject. According to the part time captain, the original owner always ran off the aft tank. During removal of the forward tanks sending unit I learned that tank was full so I switched the two engine fuel valves to run off the forward tank and in just a few minutes the starboard motor stalled and would not start. After switching that motor's valve back to aft tank she fired up and ran fine so what can be the issue? Generator only feeds off the aft tank.

Either you have it valved to off instead of the foward tank (which is what it sounds like). Or the fuel line is collapsing or clogged.