Carpe Diem Fuel Tanks

Saturday 5/29

Today is removing the vertical posts holding the tank in position. There are four posts that hold the tank to the side of the boat. There a fiberglass wedges that keep the tank from moving fore and aft. So between the wedges, the side of the boat and the four posts, that is all that holds the tank in place.

Each post has two bolts at the bottom that hold to post to ribs under the tanks and two bolts at the top that go into the floor joists. From removing the center section of the ceiling the inside of the bolts are accessible. The nut on the end of bolt is also above the ceiling over the tank. The aft most bolt took all day Saturday to get at and them remove. All the ceiling aft of the tank had to come down and that meant the hot and cold water lines also had to be lowered. Part of the work on this project is committing to remove something. I try not to take apart any more than I have to so some time is deciding how to do something and not doing too much.  But once committed, then the parts come out. I am not happy removing this much ceiling as I know I have to put it all back together. Once I could get at the nut on the bolt there was only enough space to use a little wrench to undo it, 1/8 of a turn at a time. Then, of course, the bolt would not just slide out, it also had to be unscrewed 1/8 of a turn at a time. The bolt was 6” long. So that was a good hour of work. It would be nice to have power tools for this work.

Sunday 5/30

To make a long story short, the other 7 bolts came out today. They were a little easier as the ceiling to be removed was smaller and once the nut was off, I hooked up my power screwdriver to a socked and powered out the bolts. Much easier then yesterday.

With everything obvious clear of the tank, the big test was it move toward the center of the boat. With my crowbar and hammer I could wedge outside of the tank and with one big pull the tank moved several inches toward the center. Success! This tank is free. Now we have a de-tanking party.

Carpe Diem Fuel Tanks

Saturday 5/21

There are two jobs for this weekend, removing all the vent lines to the Port Aft tank and getting all the fuel out of the tank. There are two vent lines per tank. They are both 1” lines to vent the 2” fill. My guess is there are two incase one gets blocked like with bugs and it was easier to run 1” lines than 2” lines in the space provided. The lines have been there for 23 years so they are pretty stiff to move. It takes removing the back of the cabinets in the salon to get at the top of the vent lines to move the, enough to detach them from the tanks. Here are the four port side vent lines, the engine room blower host, the 2” fuel fill and the black water tank vent lines. I clipped most everything loose to get some play in the lines and then removed them from the tank which is below the floor. This picture is inside the cabinet in the salon. The tanks are just below this picture.

The next job was to remove all the remaining fuel in the tank. I cannot have fuel dripping out when the tanks are moved. I have drained and pumped out all the fuel I can get to so the only thing left is to open up the tank and bail out the remaining fuel. These tanks have a large access port in the side of the tank for cleaning. Although, I don’t know how that was ever going to work as it me days of work to uncover the access port. So this certainly is not a yearly maintenance project.

Once the tank was opened by removing about a dozen nuts the cover could be unstuck from the sealer preventing leaks. This sealer and cover worked well as there never were any leaks here. This is the inside of the tank looking toward the rear at one of the baffles that keep the fuel from sloshing around at sea. There is a little red fuel at the bottom of the tank and that is what needs to be bailed out. The sides of the tank look pretty much brand new as they should being flooded with oily fuel most of the time. So the sides of the tank certainly would not have leaked from the inside.

Here is another picture of the inside looking at the front of the tank. You can some gunk in the tank which felt like grit. This is probably dirt or rust bits. But I am pretty impressed with how clean it actually looks. I could have seen a ½” of sludge in the bottom if water had gotten into the tank. There is so little stuff in here that the filters would have no trouble filtering this as the fuel moves through the filters.

Sunday 5/22

I spent some more time this morning bailing fuel. I used one of the big 18” x 18” fuel absorbent sheets to bail fuel. I would soak up the fuel inside the tank and then squeeze the sheet out into a fuel can. This actually worked quit well as the sheet could be used over and over like a sponge.

Later in the day a friend came over to take measurements of the tank. I am going to need accurate measurements to order some new tanks. The tanks are 60” long, 27” high and tapered from 14” at the bottom to 18” at the top and hold 100 gallons. From that we estimate they weight about 200 lbs. We also wanted to be sure we could move them to the center of the boat over the stringers. Once in the center, they have to be moved forward between the engines and out the engine hatch. There is some tilting and sliding that needs to be done to de-tank them from the boat and the measurements show we can do it with about 1” to spare.

Once we get them out of the boat the final measurements will be done and the placement of all the opening for fuel lines carefully measured. I want identical tanks to go back in so none of the fuel lines need to be changed out. I could increase the fuel capacity by probably 100 gallons if I wanted by making the tanks longer or wider but it is not worth playing with as all kinds of things would have to be changed.

Saturday 5/15/11

Saturday 5/14/11

I only have one work day this weekend. There are two projects. The first is finish empting the aft fuel tank. The fuel will be pumped into the aft starboard tank. It will take most of the morning, but fuel was all moved. The second project was to finish removing the fuel lines so the covers can be removed from the aft fuel tank. There are two lines to go. Of course, they are the biggest lines. One goes from the starboard engine return line across the front of the engines and then back past the engines to the middle of the aft fuel tank. This line is about 8’ by 10’. The lines are copper and if I want to put them back they need to come out and not get bent in the process. The hatch is only about 2 ½’ square. So a lot of twisting and tweaking and flipping and the line comes out. It took about ten minutes of maneuvering. The other line to be removed is the starboard forward return line. So it goes forward from the aft port line, across the whole width of the boat and then forward to the front of the starboard tank. Again, this line is 8’ x 10’ and more bends than the last line. Same problem of maneuvering and another ten minutes and this line is out. Both are clean and can be put back in later.

Here is the shot of the port engine blower. I actually did not realize that the blower sucked air directly out of the enclosure around the fuel tanks. That is a great way to directly remove any fuel vapors. Also visible are the two vent lines for this aft tank. I think that two lines are used because these are 1” lines and the fill is 2”. Also, with two lines, in case one gets plugged up, there is still the other one.

Saturday 5/7

Today is finishing up moving the batteries out of the way. Last weekend I moved 8 of the 12 batteries. Today is move the other 4 and get them hooked up so we still have 12v power on the boat. The big reason for this is to power the bilge pumps as necessary. Plus many of the interior light are 12v.

The last four batteries are going aft of the fuel tank and to the outside of the fresh water tank. There is an area about 24” x 24” that will fit the four batteries. They are wired together to get 12v in two parallel banks. That should be enough power for what I need. I have four charging circuits; Day, Night, Port Engine and Starboard engine. I only need one circuit for these four batteries. The night circuit is the only one with long enough wires to reach into the new location, so that is what will be used. I slide 1”x2” pieces of wood under the inside edge of the batteries to compensate for the tilt of the hull. After carefully checking all the POS and NEG connections, I throw the switch. Nothing happens. No power. All the leads look correct. I quickly unhook the leads and break out the multi-meter. (Should have done this first but everything looked fine.) With the meter, everything checks out fine. Plus to Negative. Plus to Plus. Negative to Negative. Yup, that is right. So why no power? After under 10 minutes rummaging around thru all the disconnected leads, I find another Night Negative lead. So I have two that are labeled Night Negative. Strange. Well after switching out the other Night Negative with the new one, I have 12.7 volts. Success! Only took 3 ½ hours for four batteries.

The rest of the day is spent taking the battery box out of the engine room and putting up on the fly bridge to clear the space below. Not an easy task as the box in 6 feet long by 2 feet wide by 1 foot high. Looks like a coffin. Remember it holds all twelve golf card batteries in three compartments including Plexiglas lids. I also switched the dingle end of end as the 125lb engine was on the starboard side and that is where I have been moving fuel. So by putting the engine on the port side, that 125lbs can help offset some fuel.

Sunday 5/8

Before I can remove the aft tank, I have to finish moving all the fuel to the two starboard tanks. I have about 45 gallons left to move. I hook up the transfer pump again and start pumping. I pump the fuel to the forward starboard tank and the fuel is supposed to also transfer to the aft tank thru a transfer tube that self levels the fuel in all the tanks. However it is not moving to the aft tank. All the valves are open. The transfer tube must be blocked. Oh well, what else can go wrong. So after filling up the starboard forward tank, I move the pump hoses to the aft tank directly and continue pumping.

While the pumps runs, I start removing the fuel manifold from the side of the aft tank. All this plumbing needs to be removed so I can get at the silver covers on the tank. The tank will also come out this direction, over top of the removed battery box. The fuel manifold distributes the bypass fuel from the engines and generator back to the selected tanks. There are three inputs, engines at the ends and tank returns at the top. This is all copper pipe that is runs all over the engine room. None of it can be bent as I do not want to have to make new runs. So some care is needed. Also, labels are needed on each pipe as well as the pictures to get it all back together again.

At the end of the day, this is all that is left. Still some work to do as these two lines also need to be removed. But I will save that for another day.

Friday 29 April

I had a day off from work today so I got an extra day to work on the boat. The project for today is to remove the aft vertical support at the end of the tank. The bottom had already been unbolted from the rib. The problem today was to unbolt the top. The problem is the bolts are above the head liner of the engine room. To remove the headliner, I had to undo all the fuel lines that run alone the top of the engine room. Above the silver headliner are several inches of fiberglass insulation. Real messy stuff when it falls down everywhere. I took off all the easy headliner and of course, the bolts are not above them. They are above the headliner above the tank itself. This liner is not screwed in. Instead it is above ½ wood strips that are nailed in place. I pried off two of the supports with a screwdriver and then pulled the liner down enough to get at the nuts on the bolts. Once I had access, removing the bolts and then the beam were easy.

Here is the tank with the support removed. If these vertical beams are really floor supports, I may not be able to take them all out at the same time.

Saturday 30 April

Next comes removing the fuel fill pipe that comes through the floor into the top of the tank. Below is the top of the tank and the fill.

The top of the full fill is inside the wall where the galley counter normally is.

The fuel line is a 2” line that is attached to the full fill. That is 12” long and goes through the floor.

The full fill line had to be cut away from the fill pipe. Once that was done, I could turn the pipe. The surprise was that it was only screwed into the tank about ½ a turn. That certainly was not very safe. I would have expected 5 turns minimum.

Sunday 1 May

I have pretty much decided that I can get these tanks out of the boat. I have been able to move the forward tank with a crowbar. That at least tells me they are not glued, bolted or strapped down. So to get the forward tank out and not move the engine, I will need to remove the rear tank, slide the forward tank to where the rear one is and then remove the forward tank. So now the work is to remove the rear tank. That will take removing the batteries so the rear tank can be moved to the center boat and then out the hatch between the engines. This is the before shot of the batteries and the rear tank. There are three sets of batteries. Night, day and engine batteries. Four batteries in each set.

I moved 8 of the batteries into the storage under the cockpit. This will actually be a great place for them as it is farther outboard than their normal place so their 8x70=560 lbs will help balance the missing fuel. I left four batteries connected to power the bilge pump, etc. I will do something with them next week to move them and still keep them connected.