Fuel tank maintenance

S

Stormydos

New member
Had to pull my tank to repair a poor job on installing cleats.
First wondering what was used to "bed " the tanks, looked like deteriorating tar paper to me. I'm sure it's been there since installed,what a mess. Should I put something under it to reinstall?
Second I found what appeared to be small balls of rubber in the tank. Suspected fuel line but not sure if it's filler line or supply line back flushing. Anyone see this before?
 
Since the tanks are flat on the bottom, and are supposed to be completely supported -- yet the hull is not exactly flat in that area -- I wanted to do something to try to help support them. I also wanted to give water a way to drain, and then also avoid any hard spots from gelcoat lumps, etc.

Upshot is I bought some medium hard rubber stripping from Mcmaster Carr (it was something like 2-3" wide) and cut a bunch of them to fit under each tank. I ran the gaps athwartships, IIRC, but I can't remember for sure. At any rate I put the gaps whichever way they made the most sense for drainage. This way there is some support under the whole bottom, perhaps (?), and also a way for water to flush through, to some extent.

I saw where some people had used Dri-Deck but that was a bit higher than I wanted, and plus it gets a bit oddly floppy in hot weather (at least underfoot in the cockpit).
 
I also explored ideas to make it easier for moisture to dry out under the tanks with spacers. My conclusion was that there wasn't much that could be done because if you raise the tanks even 1/4" they wont fit all the way back under the splash well.
 
capt. meares":ajkrw8se said:
My conclusion was that there wasn't much that could be done because if you raise the tanks even 1/4" they wont fit all the way back under the splash well.
Click to expand...

That's a good thing to check for. But it won't be the case with all generations of tanks and cockpit styles. There have been a few variations (different heights of tanks in the "plain hull" boats; plus the variable of the raised "liner" in the later boats with the permanent flat cockpit).
 
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