Big weekend of work this time. First was I finally decided on a new tank fabricator. I wanted the tanks redone locally so I could talk to the welders about construction, materials and most important take them a tank so the fitting would be guaranteed to fit the existing plumbing. Each tank has seven fittings, fill, drain, return, top/bottom sight gauge and two vents. These are different sizes and I want to be sure the existing plumbing will fit the new tank. Some of the placements are critical as the plumbing goes through the floor and the tank covers. So I took off Friday afternoon to deliver the two tanks I have out of the boat to the fabricator.
This is the hole that caused all the problems (e.g. leak). It was in the bottom on the port forward tank and right where the tank sits on the support. So water probably got on to the support and ran under that tank and rusted this out from the outside. It did not leak too fast as the support was under the hole which closed it up somewhat. (I also stuck a key into the hole to see how strong the metal was. Pretty rusted out. With the tanks delivered, it was off to the boat for most painting, etc.
First up was cleaning, sanding, and painting the port side exhaust manifold on the port engine. One of the cooling hosed had leaked several years ago and dripped on the hot exhaust manifold and caused some rust. So the manifold had to be stripped of the rust down to bare metal as well as the engine mount below. I never could get to this area before with the fuel tank in the way so this was my one opportunity to clean up this whole mess. The exhaust was repainted with high temperature paint.
Next was to re-fiberglass the tank support. This is ½ plywood and was fiberglassed previously so I just had to clean it up and put another coat of glass on. After talking to the tank fabricator, we decided that the tank should not rest directly on the support platform but on some strips of very hard rubber. The rubber will be placed directly above the ribs. So the tank platform is not actually needed but I kept it to spread the load out a little over the ribs. The tanks will be ¼ so they will have a very strong bottom. However, we did not want any water to get under the tanks, so I cut holes in the platform to allow air circulation as well as to drain any water away.
Next was to deal with all the screws sticking thru the hull behind the tanks. This may have been the source of the water under the tanks. I did not want to disturb the screws as they hold on the outside exhaust tube. So I made some 1 ½ inch blocks of wood with a ¾ hole on the back side. The hole was filled with silicon around the screws and the blocks were fiberglassed onto the side of the hull. This will allow the screws to be undone at some point and still seal out any water intrusion. I thought of glassing the inside of the screws but then they could not be removed in the future. I really hate things that cannot be maintained in the future.
The final job for the weekend was to clean up around the aft tank so the area could be painted. This area had the latest diesel spill as the diesel ran out of the fuel lines as I was working on the forward tank. So more scrubbing, sanding and wiping down of the area. Then a first coat of Bilge Kote paint. All in all, a good weekend of work.
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