2018 215 Freedom Gas Fill Problem

[NCFreedom]

I am new to the Grady White family, but I have a 2018 Freedom 215, and I was wondering if anyone else has an issue with the gas nozzle cutting off A LOT when filling the gas tank? The boat is on the trailer at the gas station. The fuel tank vent comes out of the side of the hull below the rub rail. The gas fill is on the top deck right in front of the windshield. I first thought the charcoal canister may be bad, or may have gotten fuel in it, so I removed the charcoal canister from the vent line and installed a piece of 5/8 fuel vent line in its place. I was able to fill the tank a little faster, and I could hear the air coming out of the vent fitting more than before, which makes sense. I even removed the fuel vent screen fitting so that the vent fitting was unrestricted. The gas nozzle still keeps cutting off and gas fills up to the nozzle then cuts off. Acts just like it is not venting properly. I was thinking that the vent hose being lower than the fill neck might be the issue. I am also thinking that the front of the tank is sitting lower than the rear of the tank when the boat is on the trailer, thus the air pocket is at the rear of the tank and not the front where the vent and fill fittings are at. I am open to suggestions, because it taking 20-25 minutes to fill the fuel tank is quickly getting old.
Thanks

 

[Halfhitch]

If you are sure the vent line has no droops in it and is routed so it has a steady up-grade to its route so there can be no puddles, then my next guess would be that the fill hose either has a droop to cause a puddle or the hose is kinked. Not uncommon for riggers in a hurry to not take time to cut the hose to the proper length. It also must have a steady down-grade to flow properly.

I understand that some of the new fuel fill systems that have the carbon canister also have a thing call a "fill control valve" or "inlet valve" in the 1 1/2 inch fill line. Make sure it is not installed backward. I have no personal experience with these but you may have one in your fill line. There may be some orientation requirements for it that is not being met such as it may need to be vertical to work properly. Find it on your boat and research it to see if it is installed properly.

 

[NCFreedom]

One year later, and I still have fuel backing up in the fill neck and cutting the fill nozzle off. You have to slowly fill the fuel to keep the nozzle from cutting off. There are also other Freedom 215 owners having this same issue. I have been chasing the cause of this issue, and spent hours troubleshooting this issue. So far, to eliminate restrictions I have removed the charcoal canister on the vent side, and replaced it with a piece of 5/8” marine gas vent hose. I removed the check valve inside the 1 1/2” fill hose at the tank, to eliminate this as any restriction in the fill hose. I unhooked the vent hose and blew through it with air pressure to make sure it was not clogged. I have checked both the fill hose and the vent hose for any kinks, and found none. I believe this is a design issue on the 215 Freedom with the routing of the fill hose and the height that it is at on it‘s route to the tank. If you look through the deck access plate at the front of the fuel tank where the fill hose and the vent hose connect, you can see that where the fill hose connects to the the fill neck on the tank is about 3/4” to 1” high from the top of the tank. Where the fill hose comes through the rigging pipe in the boat to the fuel tank, the fill hose is level with the the top of the tank. I believe that this rise in the hose from this point to the fill neck on the fuel tank is enough rise in the hose elevation to cause the issue we are having. Filling the boat on the trailer is not as bad as on the water, because I can jack up the front of the trailer with the tongue jack and a 4x4 block, and I can fill the fuel tank at as faster flow rate than on the water, but it will still cutoff some when filling. If I try to fill it up on the water at a marina, it takes forever, because you have to fill it very slowly. You can hear good airflow coming out of the vent fitting when filling it up, so there is not a restriction in that line. I have been working on this issue on my own, because I am the second owner, so I could not take it back to the dealer. For an $85,000 boat, it is really frustrating not to be able to put fuel in the boat at a normal flow rate. It takes 20-30 minutes to fill the boat up, and if you use it a lot, that gets REALLY frustrating! I have attached some pictures of the fuel fill hose height in relation to the top of the fuel tank as I described above. On another subject, I have also had issues with the port side console door for the head popping open when I get in some choppy water. It popped open 6 times last evening when I was on the water, and there was a lite chop. The door latches for both console doors do not close tight, The hatch door latch under the port side passenger seat is really loose, and they all have loose movement when closed. I have been disappointed with the loose door latches, the head compartment door regularly popping open, and the gas fill issue. I believe it will take a change in the height/drop of the fill hose to the fuel tank to resolve this issue. I have even thought about installing another fill port on the starboard side more inline with the fill neck on the tank, so that the fuel has a straighter route to the tank, but I am a little hesitant to do that to such an expensive boat.

 

[NCFreedom]

After some troubleshooting here is what I finally found to be the issue.

Troubleshooting steps I have taken:
1. Remove original vent hose from vent fitting on fuel tank.
2. Installed short piece of vent hose to the vent fitting on the fuel tank utilizing the deck plate access.
Tried to put fuel in the factory filler neck on the starboard side, and I still could not put fuel in the fuel tank at a normal rate without the fuel fill nozzle cutting off very quickly.
3. Installed a short piece of fuel fill hose with no inlet check valve, and a straight filler neck to the fuel fill fitting on the fuel tank.
I still could not put fuel in the fuel tank at a normal rate without the fuel fill nozzle cutting off very quickly.
4. I removed the fuel sender from the tank, and I was able to fill the tank with gas with the fill nozzle wide open and it did not cutoff. This indicates that there is definitely an issue with the vent fitting on the fuel tank.

I have tried refueling at several different gas stations, and at two different marinas with no success, other than to barely squeeze the gas fill nozzle, and it taking 30 minutes to put 40gals of fuel in my boat. I cannot let the fuel tank get much lower than half a tank, or it will take a very long time to refill it with fuel.

I was able to take more pictures of my fuel tank vent fitting. I used a small borescope camera to see the inside of the fuel tank fitting, and you can clearly see the tank vent fitting Hole is partially blocked by the weld when the fuel tank manufacturer welded the fuel tank vent fitting onto the fuel tank. The inside diameter of the vent fitting is about 1/2”, so any restriction that reduces the size of the opening is causing my fuel fill issue due to insufficient venting of the air inside the fuel tank when I am refueling my boat.

Grady White had me to take my boat to the nearest dealer, then they contacted the fuel tank manufacturer Florida Tank Products(FTP). FTP sent an adapter that goes underneath the fuel sending unit, and it has a hose nipple welded to it. See in the pictures below. The new vent line was then Tee’d into my existing vent line, and now I can put gas in my tank now without it coming back up the fill neck, and cutting off the fuel nozzle.

 

[seasick]

geeze If they had that adapter, obviously there is a known design issue. I am glad it worked but I am not sure it is an ideal fix. My first thought is that when the boat's bow lifts up, gas flows the back of the tank and I suspect it will fill that vent extension. Hopefully, that extension will drain back into the tank as the boat levels out.
Secondly and maybe a minor issue, the fuel gauge reading will change a bit since the sender is now sitting higher in the tank. That also means that there will be more gas in the tank below the pickup when the gas is low.

I have to compliment you on your investigation.

 

[NCFreedom]

I am planning to run a piece of large diameter pool noodle around the new vent hose from the new adapter vent under the fuel sender to the Tee fitting up at the front of the tank, so the hose does not have a droop in it. Hopefully this will allow any fuel to drain back down the hose to the new vent fitting adapter, if any fuel gets in the hose.

I asked the service manager about raising the fuel sender 1/2”, and I asked him didn’t they need to put in a new sender in that was 1/2” longer? He said, “No, that 1/2” won’t matter, and it will keep you from running out of gas.” I thought, right! You just don’t want to replace the sender. I will measure the depth of the tank with the new adapter, and install the correct sender myself, since they are not capable of doing so.

After further inspection, I also found that the dealer installed heater hose for the fuel vent hose between the new vent adapter under the sending unit to the Tee fitting at the front of the tank. I e-mailed them about this with pictures of the heater hose explaining that you could NOT use heater hose in place of fuel vent hose. They are shipping me some new 5/8” fuel vent hose today, and I will install it myself. I did not want to take the boat back to them, since they had it for 3 weeks, and I really don’t want them working on my boat now after doing something like that.
It is unfortunate that I have to deal with these issues on a boat that costs as much as these do, but it is what it is. I am just trying to get the issues corrected, so I can use my boat!

 

[seasick]

It seems that you are addressing all the right things. I don't know if I would be s cool as you seem to be

 

[SmokyMtnGrady]

impressed by diagnostics here. I am not sure if heater hose is certified to be used as a fuel application here. Marine gasoline hoses are certified by the coast guard. I replaced my fuel vent hose and fuel fill hose on my boat this spring and used MPI fuel hoses for both applications. Grady uses MPI. Anyway, good work on solving the issues.

 

[NCFreedom]

impressed by diagnostics here. I am not sure if heater hose is certified to be used as a fuel application here. Marine gasoline hoses are certified by the coast guard. I replaced my fuel vent hose and fuel fill hose on my boat this spring and used MPI fuel hoses for both applications. Grady uses MPI. Anyway, good work on solving the issues.

You are correct. You cannot use heater hose in a fuel system application. You can only use USCG approved fuel hose. That is why I told the GW dealer to ship me some USCG approved fuel vent hose, so I can replace what they installed. The service manager apologized and said that he was not aware that they installed heater hose as fuel vent hose on my boat. I will install the correct hose when it gets here.

 

[NCFreedom]

It seems that you are addressing all the right things. I don't know if I would be s cool as you seem to be

At this point I had rather just fix it myself. I do most all of my own work, because I want things done the right way. I only took this back to the dealer, because it was clearly a manufacturing defect, and I did not think I should have to pay to correct the issue. However, after seeing how they repaired my boat, I will not be taking it back to this GW dealer again.

 

[tellch00]

2018 235 and need to be gentle on the "trigger" or it shuts off. Been like this since I got the boat brand new.

 

[NCFreedom]

2018 235 and need to be gentle on the "trigger" or it shuts off. Been like this since I got the boat brand new.

Take it back to the dealer and let them troubleshoot the issue. More than likely you have a fuel venting issue, but they have a troubleshooting method to find out what is causing the problem. I did the troubleshooting myself, and sent them pictures of when I ran a borescope into the fuel tank vent fitting. Don’t just live with it. Get them to fix it!