diesel tank repair
One of my two diesel tanks has developed a leak. I don't know where exactly
the leak is, because the tank is enclosed in plywood.
Have any list members had success in "black iron" tank repair other than
replacement? If part of the bottom is rusted out, is it possible to epoxy a
plate over the compromised area. Tank replacement will be VERY expensive.
Cost almost 60% of the boat's value!!.
Richard
Willard 30
Puffin
Richard, the gold standard of leaking fuel tank is replacement, but I have
heard of "temporary" repairs being accomplished using an externally applied
epoxy product called Splash Zone.
You must remove the interfering plywood fascia material to gain visual
access to the tank's surfaces in order to ascertain the location of the
leak. If the leak turns out to be on the bottom surface of the tank where
you cannot gain access, you are faced with the task of getting all traces of
fuel out of the tank and prepping the inside surface for application of a
layer of Splash Zone. How you can do that depends on whether there are
adequate inspection ports in the tank. It all seems not worth the effort to
me.
I have participated in the replacement of two 250-gallon iron tanks with
four aluminum tanks on a twin engine trawler at a neighbor's pier where we
did the following:
Rigged a lifting gallows in the salon over the open hatches and lifted the
engine/tranny combination one at a time clear with a couple of come-alongs,
rested the engine on some 4X4s and then get down there and cutout/remove the
tank. Commercial folks will eat you alive on labor, especially if the old
black iron tank has to be cut out rather than slid out and removed. Taking
careful measurement before cutting the old tank out will give you the
template to make new deck fill, vent, drain, and fuel supply ports. If the
original tank cannot be removed intact, the replacement can consist of two
or more tanks sandwiched together, oriented vertically or horizontally and
plumbed together.
Given the small size of your single main engine on a Willard 30, this job
should cost you the price of the a couple of come-alongs, some lumber, a
bunch of sawz-all blades if cutting is required, some valves and fuel hose,
and whatever the tank manufacturer wants. I'd go with aluminum well coated
externally with zinc-chromate paint followed by coal tar.
Rich Gano
FROLIC 2005 Mainship 30 Pilot II
Panama City, FL
Have any list members had success in "black iron" tank repair other than
replacement? If part of the bottom is rusted out, is it possible to epoxy
a plate
over the compromised area. Tank replacement will be VERY expensive.
Cost almost 60% of the boat's value!!.
As Rich said, replacement is the gold standard - for at least two reasons!
Once you remove the plywood, you should get a better idea of the
location of the leak, but you still won't be able to see the bottom of
the tank (a likely source of the leak due to water accumulation) or the
outside facing - perhaps not even the top depending on your layout. One
source of leaks is the top of the tank near the fuel fill where water
might have penetrated along the fill tube and rusted out the iron tank
near the fill fitting - fill the tank with fuel, get into agitated
water, and the fuel sloshes out the rusting holes in the top. If you can
reach it, you might be able to repair that type of leak with fiberglass
and epoxy.
A former list member, from a decade or more ago, advocated cleaning the
inside of the tanks and coating it was some solution - not epoxy - that
would seal any leaks. Of course, you can only do that if you have
inspection plates that allow easy access to the inside of the tanks.
Inspection plates themselves are another source of leaks!!!
Replacing the tanks may not be as expensive as you might imagine. Get a
number of estimates from yards which have actually done the work. Don't
rely on anyone who hasn't actually completed the repair.
You might check our web site (in the signature, below) to see what we
went through - yours wouldn't be nearly so complicated. The overall
project cost a bundle, but I had a lot of extra work done at the same
time, used only premium materials, and everything was completed to
comply with USCG standards for passenger-carrying vessels! About 1/3 of
the cost was for the heavy-gauge aluminum tanks of which no corner was
square and no side was a parallelogram! It took a welding genius to put
the pieces together once they had been cut by a CNC cutter at the best
welding/fabricating shop in the area.
<><><><><><><><><><><><>Mozilla Thunderbird<><><><><><><><><><>
Bob McLeran and Judy Young Manatee Cove Marina
MV Sanderling Patrick Air Force Base
DeFever 41 Trawler Melbourne, Florida
Blog: http://mvsanderling.net/Blog
Web: http://cruising.mvsanderling.net/
On 7/27/2018 04:31 PM, Richard P via Trawlers-and-Trawlering wrote:
One of my two diesel tanks has developed a leak. I don't know where exactly
the leak is, because the tank is enclosed in plywood.
Have any list members had success in "black iron" tank repair other than
replacement? If part of the bottom is rusted out, is it possible to epoxy a
plate over the compromised area. Tank replacement will be VERY expensive.
Cost almost 60% of the boat's value!!.
Richard
Willard 30
Puffin
It is possible that the "non-epoxy" substance that Bob referred to for
repairing leaks is Microseal. I'd suggest a call to the company to
discuss whether that product will work on diesel impregnated iron.
Best of luck
Rudy and Jill Sechez
Plymouth, NC
BRINEY BUG-a 34' Sail-Assisted Trawler
850-832-7748
anchoringconsultants.com
"ANCHORING-A Ground Tackler's Apprentice"
E-book or Hard Copy
On Fri, Jul 27, 2018 at 5:43 PM, Bob McLeran via
Trawlers-and-Trawlering trawlers@lists.trawlering.com wrote:
As Rich said, replacement is the gold standard - for at least two reasons!
Once you remove the plywood, you should get a better idea of the location of
the leak, but you still won't be able to see the bottom of the tank (a
likely source of the leak due to water accumulation) or the outside facing -
perhaps not even the top depending on your layout. One source of leaks is
the top of the tank near the fuel fill where water might have penetrated
along the fill tube and rusted out the iron tank near the fill fitting -
fill the tank with fuel, get into agitated water, and the fuel sloshes out
the rusting holes in the top. If you can reach it, you might be able to
repair that type of leak with fiberglass and epoxy.
A former list member, from a decade or more ago, advocated cleaning the
inside of the tanks and coating it was some solution - not epoxy - that
would seal any leaks. Of course, you can only do that if you have inspection
plates that allow easy access to the inside of the tanks. Inspection plates
themselves are another source of leaks!!!
Replacing the tanks may not be as expensive as you might imagine. Get a
number of estimates from yards which have actually done the work. Don't rely
on anyone who hasn't actually completed the repair.
You might check our web site (in the signature, below) to see what we went
through - yours wouldn't be nearly so complicated. The overall project cost
a bundle, but I had a lot of extra work done at the same time, used only
premium materials, and everything was completed to comply with USCG
standards for passenger-carrying vessels! About 1/3 of the cost was for the
heavy-gauge aluminum tanks of which no corner was square and no side was a
parallelogram! It took a welding genius to put the pieces together once they
had been cut by a CNC cutter at the best welding/fabricating shop in the
area.
<><><><><><><><><><><><>Mozilla Thunderbird<><><><><><><><><><>
Bob McLeran and Judy Young Manatee Cove Marina
MV Sanderling Patrick Air Force Base
DeFever 41 Trawler Melbourne, Florida
Blog: http://mvsanderling.net/Blog
Web: http://cruising.mvsanderling.net/
On 7/27/2018 04:31 PM, Richard P via Trawlers-and-Trawlering wrote:
One of my two diesel tanks has developed a leak. I don't know where
exactly
the leak is, because the tank is enclosed in plywood.
Have any list members had success in "black iron" tank repair other than
replacement? If part of the bottom is rusted out, is it possible to epoxy
a
plate over the compromised area. Tank replacement will be VERY expensive.
Cost almost 60% of the boat's value!!.
Richard
Willard 30
Puffin
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Productions. Unauthorized use is prohibited.
Errata!! The description of our fuel tank replacement is actually on our
blog, not our web site (which is very much out of date).
You can find our blog at: http://mvsanderling.net/Blog/
<><><><><><><><><><><><>Mozilla Thunderbird<><><><><><><><><><>
Bob McLeran and Judy Young Manatee Cove Marina
MV Sanderling Patrick Air Force Base
DeFever 41 Trawler Melbourne, Florida
Blog: http://mvsanderling.net/Blog
Web: http://cruising.mvsanderling.net/
On 7/27/2018 05:43 PM, Bob McLeran via Trawlers-and-Trawlering wrote:
You might check our web site (in the signature, below) to see what we
went through - yours wouldn't be nearly so complicated. The overall
project cost a bundle, but I had a lot of extra work done at the same
time, used only premium materials, and everything was completed to
comply with USCG standards for passenger-carrying vessels! About 1/3
of the cost was for the heavy-gauge aluminum tanks of which no corner
was square and no side was a parallelogram! It took a welding genius
to put the pieces together once they had been cut by a CNC cutter at
the best welding/fabricating shop in the area.
<><><><><><><><><><><><>Mozilla Thunderbird<><><><><><><><><><>
Bob McLeran and Judy Young Manatee Cove Marina
MV Sanderling Patrick Air Force Base
DeFever 41 Trawler Melbourne, Florida
Blog: http://mvsanderling.net/Blog
Web: http://cruising.mvsanderling.net/
'Lo All,
Replacement of the leaking iron fuel tanks with aluminum tanks on the
Celestial cost a total of about $20,800 (about $9,600.00 labor - we had
some other stuff done - and $5900.00 for the tanks) in 2008. The way we
looked at it, leaking fuel tanks made the boat unusable as the diesel
could end up being pumped overboard and unsellable should we wish to
sell her. New aluminum tanks made her usable and made it more attractive
if we wished to sell her.
Take care and be safe.
Wayne
Celestial
Albin43 Sundeck
Near Panama City, FL
"One of my two diesel tanks has developed a leak. I don't know where exactly the leak is, because the tank is enclosed in plywood. Have any list members had success in "black iron" tank repair other than replacement? "
Richard,
I posted last month about one of our two aluminum diesel tanks leaking. I drained the tank and had thought it would be in an easy place to use a J&B diesel tank repair kit but after my son used a video borescope to inspect underneath, found that any repair was beyond reach within the engine room. After getting $20K estimate from two boatyards (which involved removing rear sliding glass door, dinette and galley, AC, floor panels, engine and transmission and then remove leaking tank and replace all), I decided to cut the 100 gallon tank into pieces and install a smaller Moeller poly tank. Bought a Makita 10 gauge Nipper and a Kobalt skilsaw. It took close to 30 hours in a very confined space. The nipper was great...like an electric hole punch but couldn't go into a corner or make anykind of turn; the Kobalt saw is a one-hand operation (as opposed to the much larger two hand operation reciprocating saws). After getting to the leak area, found that a steel washer had found its way to be under the aluminum tank and over eight years, they didn't like each other and a perfect washer-shaped hole was formed. I took the cut up tank to a recycle metal place and got $28 so I "earned" less than $1.00 per hour for by cutting job. I do not yet have the 50 gallon poly tank installed; still getting everything I need. Will have to remove four bolts holding down the generator, disconnect a water exhaust hose for the port engine and get a large supply of vaseline to slick up the tank to shove it into place (hopefully it will fit). Before you ask about downsizing from 100 gallon to 50 gallon, when I installed the 100 gallon tanks 8 years ago, I downsized engine size - from large Volvo turbodiesel 144 HP to 60 HP BetaMarine (Kubota) naturally aspirated and less thirsty engines.
Reid Gantt, Atlantic 30 LRC "Vouivre", docked at Old Ferry Marina, Sneads Ferry NC