i'm getting the bits together to fuel my motorhome on biodiesel,
will get a 600 litre ibc tank to sit at the back of the garage to store the fuel in, and need to be able to transfer the fuel from it about 15 meters to reach the van's fillers from where i park it (cant get it any closer as the garage is at the end of the house, and the drive down the side of the house is too narrow for the motorhome)
been looking at the fuel transfer pumps, which are basicaly a water pump rated for about 40 litres a minute, and a length of 1 inch hose to a petrol pump type nozzle, there seems to be nothing to stop the pump when the nozzle's valve is shut, dunno about an internal bypass valve, but no mention of one.
anyway, i have in my garage somewhere the central heating pump from the old boiler, a halstead finest gold, now i dont expect 40 litres a minute pump rates, but any ideas of the pump rate? would likely be a bit lower due to pumping bio diesel as opposed to water, but a ballpark figure would help me decide if it's even worth faffing about with the centeral heating pump as a fuel transfer pump,
i plan on mounting the tank about 50cm off the ground over a sump i make to catch any spillage, if i mount the pump on the floor, it'd get a feed of fuel, and be pushing the fuel along the hose and about a meter high to the vans fuel tanks fillers.
it'd only be used for how ever long it takes to transfer 130 litres, and prolly every month during summer,
if it can do the job, would it be worth adding an automatic bypass valve? i.e. a central heating one, so it pumps the fuel back to it's inlet port when the nozzle is closed, or would i have trouble setting the valve due to it being calibrated for water, and me using a thicker fluid. the other option is to run a wire along the hose to the nozzle, and have a switch (via a relay) turn the pump on and off as the lever is pulled in and released.
i've also been thinking about taking delivery of the bio diesel, it comes in
25 litre containers in the back of a van, i could manualy tip each one into the tank, but i was thinking about a set of valves that routes the suction port of the pump to the delivery nozzle, and routes the output port to the top of the tank (bypassing the filter i will have on the draw off valve on the tank) then a length of hose over the nozzle and dip it into the 25 litre containers to suck the fuel up and take it to the main tank, would i have problems with priming the pump tho or things like that?