1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Bending & Installing Stainless Fuel Supply Tubing

The fuel system is coming along nicely. I’ll be wrapping it up soon. The fuel filters and on-engine hoses and fittings are installed, as is the fuel supply distribution manifold, and the fuel gauge is working. I also bent and installed 304 stainless return line tubing. Next up is the supply tubing.

The starboard on-engine fuel supply hose connects directly to the distribution manifold, so I only need to make one long tubing section to feed the port engine. I also need to connect the bulkhead supply fittings to the fuel filter inlets for both sides.

The supply tubing is 1/2″ OD 304 stainless

It turns out 1/2″ SS tubing is much harder to work with than 3/8″.

My 1/2″ tubing bender isn’t Swagelok

This 1/2″ tubing bender isn’t bad. But it uses a solid, hardened die to make the bends instead of the hardened steel wheels my 3/8″ Swagelok bender uses. So, obviously, any problems I had bending the 1/2″ tubing was entirely the fault of the tool. 😉

That looks about right

Most bends I’ve had to do involve just two axes. You make a 90° bend from horizontal to vertical, for example. But this section of tubing has a single bend that involved the X, Y, and Z axes…it was very difficult to make. As I said before, doing this has given me great respect for the guys who work with stainless tubing regularly.

I decided to tackle the short bulkhead tubing next

When I installed the bulkhead fittings a few years ago, I bent some 1/2″ tubing that you can see above. It was long enough to reach the port engine fuel filter inlet, but just barely. And I didn’t like the long 45° angle the tube had to take to go from the bulkhead to the filter inlet.

New tube connects the bulkhead fitting to the port fuel filter inlet

I put TefGel on the threads before locking down the Swagelok tube-to-NPT connector

You can see the Sharpie marks on the Swagelok fitting. They’re offset by 1/4 turn, which tells me I put the nut on hand tight, marked straight across with a Sharpie, then used a wrench to rotate the nut 1-1/4 turns. That’s the recommended procedure for making these fittings liquid-tight.

Next, I installed the engine supply tube

In the pic above you can see it attached to the 90° fitting at the top of the manifold. Then it drops down to the stringer and meets the bulkhead before crossing to the outboard stringer.

I had to do some adjusting to get the tube in just the right spot

I have to say, one thing I really like about this boat is the excellent access I have to the propeller shaft behind the engine and gear. A little pad and you could almost take a nap here!

I drilled and tapped holes to secure the tube using expanded PVC spacers, P-clamps, and stainless screws

Tube and hose barb fittings came next

Getting close

Everything’s connected, and the Swagelok fitting is marked with a Sharpie

1-1/4 turns later, the connection (should be) leak free

The last step was bending the starboard bukhead-to-filter line

I had a real hard time with this last short line. I’m not happy at all with the way it turned out, with all those extra bends. I cut it too long, but the bends on either end were perfect and I couldn’t bring myself to throw it in the recycle box. I’ll give another shot at it later, when the 90° Swagelok fitting I need there comes in.

Next up in our 1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Fischer Panda Marine 12 Mini DP Genset

1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Bending & Installing Main Engine Fuel Return Tubing

The Roamer fuel system is coming along nicely. I consider this to be a priority item in my quest to get the boat out of the tent and launched before November 2022.

There’s a new marina manager, and they’ve significantly jacked up the cost of land storage to match the prices they charge at all of the other marinas in the area that they manage. It stinks of monopoly price fixing, especially given the level of service provided at my particular marina (the yard toilet bowl was literally BLACK and coated with…residue…and I’ve had to contribute soap because they provided none for months), but regardless, just as a practical matter I need to get the boat back in the water and closer to home. So being able to fire up the engines and leave Deale, Maryland, in October is my primary focus right now.

The fuel filters and on-engine hoses and fittings are installed, as is the fuel supply distribution manifold, and the fuel gauge is working. So next I started bending tubes to connect the bulkhead fuel return fittings to the on-engine hoses.

This short section of tubing connects the engine room bulkhead fitting to a small fuel return manifold

A little Tefgel to lubricate the Swagelok fitting threads

The tubing is loosely fitted in place

The fuel return manifold is much simpler than the supply side

Under normal conditions, each engine draws from and returns to its respective tank: stbd to stbd, port to port. But if I get a fuel problem in one tank and need to run both engines off the other, I’ll need to direct the return fuel flow to the tank I’m drawing from.

It would have been tidier to have both manifolds on the same panel, but I chose not to because of space limitations and system efficiency. Putting the return manifold on the supply manifold support panel would have required additional 90° bends, and each one reportedly adds the equivalent of 15′ worth of straight tubing friction. A tidier appearance would have required the equivalent of 60 additional feet worth of friction, and I don’t think it’s worth it.

What else could I do???

Putting the return manifold so close to the bulkhead fittings was one of those “all things considered, this is the best spot” kind of decisions. But the ER floorboard support 6061 aluminum angle was perfectly in the way. I didn’t want to cut cut the floor support and weld in a brace for it somewhere else. So instead I made a relatively big loop in the tubing so it goes under the floorboard support with a 90° bend to the bulkhead fitting.

With the start and end points done, I bent tubing to connect them

As a rank amateur, I’ve developed great respect for professional tubing benders

So, you’ve got to connect A to B, but the tubing has to take a 110° bend to the left, go 11 inches forward before bending precisely 12° to match the bulkhead and then go 17-1/4″ outboard before turning 90° forward for 58″, then 45° up and terminate in 7″…oh, and that’s all in one relatively short run of 304 stainless tubing…easy peasy.

HA! NOT!

In a stunning development, it fit perfectly the first time!

Pro tip: don’t get cocky when amateurs are bending stainless tubing.

The last 45° bend to meet the starboard main engine return line

BOOM!

I used expanded PVC again to stand the return lines off the engine stringer and p-clamps to hold it in place. Stainless screws and their corresponding drilled and tapped holes were coated with TefGel before installation. The starboard side return line is a wrap.

The port side was a slightly longer run

I had to bend it in the salon because there wasn’t enough room in the engine room.

Each additional bend significantly increases the risk that I’ll screw up and turn the whole thing into scrap

Quality tools make the job easier to get some things right

When the Swagelok bender indicates the tube is bent to 90°, you can take it to the bank. But the trick is, you have to over-bend a wee bit so the tubing settles in at 90°. Which only added to my appreciation for professional tubing benders.

Last bend is done…ready to cut the tube from the coil and test fit

In another stunning development, the port side fit perfectly, too!

Pro tip: don’t get cocky.

With the test fit done, I drill holes for the mounting clamps

TefGel goes in each drilled and tapped hole

Nice!

Looking good!

I had to put an impromptu jog in the tubing to get it over a frame

BOOM!

Done

The main engine fuel return circuit is done. This is a major box checked on the way to splashing the boat.

Next up in our 1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Bending & Installing Stainless Fuel Supply Tubing

1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Installing the Forward Fuel Tank Supply Line

One of the valves I installed on the fuel supply distribution manifold will allow me to transfer fuel from the aft tanks to the 120 gallon forward fuel tank that I installed waaaay back in 2016. With both the start and end points installed, next I took my awesome Swagelok tubing bender out of retirement and found the rolls of 1/2″ and 3/8″ stainless tubing I bought back in 2012.  Then I got busy connecting the supply manifold valve to the forward tank with a fairly long run of that stainless tubing.

Straighten out some 3/8″ 304 stainless steel tubing from the coil

It’s very challenging getting this tubing to straighten out. I use the floor of the salon and step on the tubing while unrolling it from the coil. Then I slightly over-bend it against the remaining curve by hand. It never ends up being straight. But when I install it with clamps every 12-16 inches it ends up being pretty close to straight.

I wonder how the pros do it?

The forward fuel tank is the cube-shaped one up against the forward bulkhead under the galley

The round tank is for potable water.

I put a couple of bends in the tubing to match the steps I made

Rubber isolated P-clamps and a block of expanded PVC will hold the tubing in place and stand it off of the aluminum step frame

Drill, tap, then apply Tefgel to each hole

The Tefgel will stop corrosion from happening between the aluminum and stainless screws that hold each clamp in place.

Drill, tap, and Tefgel the remaining holes in the step frame and engine stringers

Apply Tefgel to the stainless screws, and install each clamp

I put a nice little bend below the steps, then ran the tubing straight back to the supply manifold valve

The supply line is just below the level of the ER floorboards so they’re readily visible and accessible if necessary, but there’s no way to step on them. It’s also extremely unlikely that something heavy enough to damage the tubing could fall and somehow miss the stringer on one side or the aluminum angle floorboard support on the other.

Clamps every 12″ all the way back to the manifold

That’s a wrap for the forward tank supply tubing. I still have to bend and install the supply and return lines from the forward tank to the Fischer Panda genset, but that comes later. First, I want to connect fuel system tubing to the main engines.

Next up in our 1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Bending & Installing Main Engine Fuel Return Tubing

1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Wrapping up the Exhaust Showerhead Plumbing

Getting the raw water supply and exhaust done for my Cummins 6CTA main engines is a major priority for getting this Roamer out of the tent and floating again. I made the raw water tell-tale thru-hulls recently. Now I need to install those and make some tubing to connect the heat exchangers to the exhaust riser showerheads.

Let me apologize in advance for the poor lighting in some of these pictures. The ER is darker in some places than others, and white things in the frame make the camera ‘see’ the dark areas as far darker than they are to the human eye.

The port engine’s HEX raw water outlet and showerhead inlet are pointed in different directions

Oh, and the outlets and inlets are 1-3/4″, not 1-1/2″.

Given that marine exhaust hose is somewhat flexible, the fact that the outlets and inlets aren’t pointed at each other is a lesser problem than that the HEX outlets point directly at the middle of my brand new risers, and the insulation is only 3-1/2″ away.

The starboard side is even worse

The starboard showerhead inlet is on the far side of the riser dry section from the HEX outlet

I’d been thinking about how to resolve this problem, but after spending many hours trying to find pre-formed hose that would work (my on-the-fly, couch engineer assumption when I made the risers), I finally decided to just buy some 1-3/4″ mandrel bent stainless tubing and make some twisty raw water pipes that’ll have short sections of hose attaching them to the inlets and outlets.

One U and one EL will do the trick

vibrantperformance.com had the tubing I needed at a fair price, and the shipping was super fast.

Grab a Sharpie and start marking where to make the cuts on the U-shaped tube

Eyeball the angles and mark with a Sharpie where the U tubing needs to be cut

Starboard side is more complicated

The straight section that I’ll cut off the U-shaped tube I used on the port side will help make the stretch to the showerhead on the starboard side.

The EL wraps nicely around the starboard insulated riser

It was a good decision to go with a long-radius EL for this application. It pretty much follows the curvature of the exhaust insulation wrap. I’ll cut off a bit of the straight section here, and use some of the leftover U mandrel bend from the port side to point the tube toward the HEX outlet on the starboard side.

Back at the garage, I put my Harbor Freight metal-cutting bandsaw to work

Test fit port side…looks good! (sorry for the lousy lighting!)

Test fit starboard side…looks good!

12″ Shopsmith disk sander comes in handy for final-fitting tubing before welding

That’s a professional-grade fit, if I do say so myself

Final dry-fit

I rotated the mandrel bends until everything was pointing in the right directions. Then I drew a Sharpie across each joint in a couple of spots so I can reproduce their orientation back at the shop. I used some tape to hold the joints together for the last, very last, final dry fit.

Back to the garage for some TIG welding.

Tackin’ and TIGgin’

I used my double argon regulator rig to supply the TIG gun and for a purge line that goes inside the tube. I capped off both ends of the tube with aluminum foil and tape, leaving small gaps for air to escape as it’s forced out by the heavier argon shield gas. After a minute or two of slow purging, I tacked the tubes and welded around the joints.

Looking good!

Almost done

Last joint to weld

Done! (sorry for the terrible lighting!)

The Big Day has arrived!

Nice final test fit!

Perfect! Ready for hose!

This is Shields 200 Series, no-wire 1-3/4″ exhaust hose, date stamped May 2022

Boom

BTW, I’m using Breeze constant torque hose clamps in this application.

Port showerhead raw water connections, including 5/8″ tell-tale line, are done

I’ll attach the 5/8″ hose to the thru-hull later

The thru-hulls are currently in use as grommets for wires that need to go outside the boat.

Starboard is next

Absolutely perfect fit, with ~1/2″ of clearance to the riser insulation

Starboard showerhead raw water connections are done

5/8″ raw water overflow/tell-tale hose goes from the showerhead to the thru-hull I made recently

Maybe I should redo those thru-hulls with 90° mandrel bends instead….

Outside the boat, the 316 stainless raw water thru-hulls look good

Ignore the goo that got splashed on my paint in the picture above…it washes off.

Port side thru-hull is being used as a wire grommet

So that’s a wrap for the exhaust raw water system. I still need to install a 2″ aluminum standpipe for the main engine raw water inlets, and connect the strainers. But it’s too hot to weld in the tent now. I’ll wait for late August or September for that. In the meantime, I’m getting more mission critical stuff done in preparation for splashing ASAP.

Next up in our 1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Fuel System Plumbing