24 feet motorhome - 55 gl. fuel tank

I drive a 'C' and pull a Jeep toad four down. So just any gas station won't work for me. I can't back up more than a foot before the front wheels on the Jeep turn all the way to their stops. And I have to find a station with pumps parallel to the road and without a low overhang.
So I start looking when I get to half a tank. By that time, my personal tank is full of coffee anyway. Might as well use the station's holding tank.

I've never let the tank get that low in the MH. Considering it averages 8 mpg, leaving only a few gallons in the tank doesn't leave many options at all. I usually fill up when the needle gets to about a 1/4 tank.

I like the be prepared and fill up at half a tank idea, but with a 8 mpg vehicle, that means I'm stopping every 2.5 hours to fill up. Anything less than 4 hours between fill-ups is too soon to stop for me. On the East Coast, there's practically a gas station at every interstate highway, so we're never really far from a fill up.

-Michael

IMHO, don't let the tank level get below half, we have safety minded limits. If u do the prepare thing, a lot of times u might not need it. Now it s all happy-camping

toedtoes wrote:
There are far too many variables to give you an accurate answer. Make, model, age of the vehicle, age of the sending unit, condition of the sending unit, etc.

Or how much of what's left is water not gasoline .........

Now that fuel is a dollar cheaper, instead of putting $20 in when the light comes on... fill it up and subtract from 54.

Easy to answer that on your own.

Fill it completely when the low fuel light comes on. Look at how much you just put in and subtract from 55 gals.

Jose

Mine comes on somewhere around 1/8 of a tank. YMMV

The manual does not give the amount of fuel remaining in the tank when the light goes on, I have a 24 foot E-350 V-10 with the 55 gallon tank and refuel when the needle is between the bottom E and the first mark, it is not good to run the fuel pumps dry, they tend to brake sooner.

One tank should give you about 350 miles depending on the terrain and where the wind is blowing in font or behind, that is at 55 mph, go faster and your gas refueling stops will sooner.

navegator

Remember that the generator draft tube in most RV's only extends down 3/4 of the way to the bottom of the tank. So the generator will run out of gas before the RV reaches about 1/4 tank.

At what point does your low fuel light come on? Just below 1/4 tank, or closer to 1/8 tank full?

each 1/8 of your tank is about 7 gallons. My guess is that at 1/8 tank, there should be about 10 gallons left. Yet if you run out of fuel on the highway, then pull over to the side, the leaning motorhome will require much more than 10 gallons to get the fuel pump under the gas, so you can start the RV and drive on to the gas station.

Do you keep track of your average MPG? If you write down the mileage when the light comes on, and say you average about 8 MPG or 9 MPG, and get fuel say 18 miles later, you can guess that you used about 2 gallons to get to the station, and filled it with about 45 gallons, then estimate how much was left when the light came on.

My buddy installed a second fuel tank on his 1986 Ford motorhome. The stock "33" gallon tank - the most he ever put in it was 34 gallons on one trip, and it had read "E" for a while before reaching Barsto, where it took 34 gallons. After installing the second tank, he ran it dry (you can get away with that on a carburetor engine) and then was able to add 39 gallons to the main tank.

You are better off not waiting until the low fuel light comes on. The fuel pump will get warm, because it is not fully submerged in fuel, and will run warmer, and have a shorter life due to running warmer.

Have fun camping!

Fred.

Only one way to find out - drive until it comes on, then fill the tank and do the math.

Bring a full gas can with you just in case.