Living in Minnesota means that our lakes freeze in the winter and our boats need to be stored. Depending on how much you use your boat and the type of gas you use it is likely that you will want to drain the fuel before putting the boat away. Actually, I drain the fuel, then refill with fresh gas and stabilizer. So the problem is what is the best/easiest way to go about “Draining Fuel from Boat”?
Solution: Use a Fuel Pump
Ultimately, the solution was simple; use a 12V fuel pump. I learned about this from my local Motorsports dealer when I dropped off my boat to have the engine winterized. They offered to drain the fuel for more money than I wanted to spend and they just discarded the fuel. I asked how they did it and they told me about using fuel pump.
I went on Amazon and found a fuel pump and ordered it in. It arrived before I even got my boat back. I then mounted the pump to a board. I used boat’s starter battery to power the pump using a 12v plug-in cable to the battery. I wired in a simple switch to make it easy to use.
Then I disconnected the fuel line coming from the boat’s fuel tank and connected that to the input side of the pump. The output side went to a gas can sitting on the floor. Using this setup I was able to pump out fuel to a gas can and then put the gas into one of our vehicles. It took several iterations but there was no wasted fuel.
Then I took the boat to a nearby station and filled the tank with non-oxygenated fuel plus some fuel stabilizer. With that, the boat was ready for storage and will be all ready to go in the spring.
