Bad Fuel Problem

[ashefrin]

I recently purchased a 1980 Hatteras 53 Convertible and the previous owner left us bad fuel in the rear tank, we are trying to remove 700 gallons of contaminated fuel from the rear tank.
The Marina does not want to take apart the cover(see picture) and remove the sending unit because it has never been removed They also say that if I get the bad fuel pumped out at a cost of $8.00 per gallon they cannot guarantee that there will not be a lot of sludge in the bottom and how to get it all cleaned out is my question is how do I get all the sludge out of the tank. I am having someone from an environmental company come safely remove the old fuel but he cannot be sure if he gets all the stuff out of the bottom of the tank.
My thoughts are to drill a 2” hole to the right of this cover and then seal it up after I get the tank cleaned out. Any suggestions would be helpful……Thanks in advance

 

[Pascal]

I wouldn’t remove the plate but the gauge sender should come off and will be enough to suck the sludge at the bottom. That s what we did on my boat during the repower to ensure clean tanks.

Unless the fuel is real old, most of it could be pumped away from the bottom and be filtered. That’s why you need to pull the sender so you can pull from the top first to check it

 

[ashefrin]

I wouldn’t remove the plate but the gauge sender should come off and will be enough to suck the sludge at the bottom. That s what we did on my boat during the repower to ensure clean tanks.

Unless the fuel is real old, most of it could be pumped away from the bottom and be filtered. That’s why you need to pull the sender so you can pull from the top first to check it

Thanks for the idea I will check it out....appreciate it.....

 

[Boatsb]

Pull all the fittings.. Unscrew the plate. Fix the broken screws and retap where necessary. There's no reason not to fix the thing right while your at it. Shortcuts never pay off.

Get a fuel polish company to clean and remove the bad fuel. It's not a DIY job. Too much to go wrong with transportation of 700 gallons of bad fuel.

 

[Pascal]

Make sure the boat is blocked so that the fuel pools under the hole when almost empty. Had this issue on mine. I had about 100 gallons old fuel removed. They got it all out of the forward tank but because the boat was blocked slightly now high there were about 20 gallons of old fuel and crap left in the aft tank. I was able to pump it out and filter it once in water

 

[bostonhatteras]

I seriously doubt you'll have deep sludge. Unless the PO was pouring waste motor oil in there in ridiculous concentrations I cant see where the sludge would result from. What you'll likely have is a fair amount of bacteria spores. Water in the tank will also cause the copper pick up, return and screens to corrode. What I personally did to a tank with problems such as I just mentioned was to use oxalic acid to clean the tank. Its no simple task unfortunately as you'll need approx. five dry gallons of oxalic acid powder placed into the emptied tank followed by 50 gallons of tap water. Let the acid sit for a couple days and if you can take the boat out and let it splash around. Pump all the acid out after and flush the tank a few times with clean water. Using a simple impellor pump is sufficient to remove the water and debris. use a vacuum cleaner to suck up the remaining water the pump wont get. to dry the tank, take a 2" plastic pipe nipple and a 2" flange and fasten a bilge blower to the flange. Screw the pipe nipple into the fuel gauge fitting and operate the bilge blower pushing air into the tank. Remove the deck fill cap to allow the moist air to escape. its a long process but it works with out cutting any holes in a perfectly good tank. dont try looking in the tank with a flashlight, its just a source of frustration. instead use a medium base lamp holder from an old clamp light and screw in a candelabra style bulb.. this will slip right into the 2" fuel gauge threaded hole and you'll be able to see everything really clearly.

 

[jim rosenthal]

You might also invest in a cheap fiberoptic 'endoscope' which will allow you to see all the areas of the tank. HF has them, and they are very useful.

 

[ashefrin]

Pull all the fittings.. Unscrew the plate. Fix the broken screws and retap where necessary. There's no reason not to fix the thing right while your at it. Shortcuts never pay off.

Get a fuel polish company to clean and remove the bad fuel. It's not a DIY job. Too much to go wrong with transportation of 700 gallons of bad fuel.

Thanks a lot for the advice.....appreciate the help

 

[oscarvan]

Many auto repair shops up here burn waste oil in their shops in winter. They will happily take your dirty fuel and cut it into their barrels.

 

[Glory]

Did you a the fuel tested?

My boat came with 300 gallons in the aft tank that had been there for more than ten years. PO Claimed the fuel was NG, I burnt it. Away from the harbor, and ready to switch to another tank, I used a couple of racors in the process. But didn't pay to remove it.

 

[rsmith]

Aft tank in a 53C is 250 BTW

 

[rsmith]

First the feed and return to the engines need to be replaced. They should be hard copper. The ends should be brass not steel. Second diesel is not like gas it doesn’t go “bad” I gets contaminated with water and algae that grows on the water fuel interface. Just pump the bad stuff off the bottom. The 53 C has centerline tanks forward is 450 center is 350 and aft is 250. The bottoms are not flat but tapered to comforter to the hull. Makes it easi to get all the crap out.

 

[JCG-PR]

In case this helps,

We were faced with the same situation you are, as in wanting to remove possible sludge from bottom of the tanks in our 45C. The sender looked to have never been removed, like yours. We got a large socket that fit over the sender "nut" and it wouldn't budge with a breaker bar. We decided to "risk it" and used an electric impact wrench on the socket. This way, we were able to remove both senders, no problem.

Used a tube to suck the fuel from the bottom, along with sludge, into barrels. Then filtered the fuel from the top of the barrels back into the tanks, leaving the sludge on the bottom. It has worked well so far.

Good luck,
JCG

 

[ashefrin]

Thanks to all for the help I did get a endoscope and I will be going up to try to get in there I will update and thanks for all the good ideas....really appreciate it Andy

 

[jim rosenthal]

Sam's has those float tank gauges, if you need to replace it. It appears you are due for some new hoses, might as well do it all at once.

 

[SKYCHENEY]

If the problem is only in one tank, you might consider just running the boat and changing filters. You could run one engine off of a clean tank so you'd never get caught dead on the water. We did this years ago with a 43DC that had algae and crap in the tank. It eventually cleared up.

 

[RichardM]

[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Tahoma, Calibri, Geneva, sans-serif]I went through the same problem with our boat. It sat for a few years and the fuel was in terrible shape. 500 gallons of serious algae and mud like stuff. We wouldn't last 5 minutes at 1000RPM and the Racors were completely clogged. We decided to clean and start fresh but it's was not an easy task. This meant removing sections of the floor over the tanks. Fuel polishing doesn't work very well in baffled tank without some serious pressure stirring things up in the tank. Plus the fuel was old. Diesel used to last a very long time. It is not the case with the newer biofuel. They deteriorate fast. There are a few ways to clean tanks but this is what we did.[/FONT]


[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Tahoma, Calibri, Geneva, sans-serif]The two biggest problems are tank access and that there are a lot of baffles in those keel tanks. Not just transversal but longitudinal too. The longitudinal are on the upper portion sides where the tank is widest. You have to make a 2” hole in each section to get between the baffles. We didn't do the longitudinal ones. Just the transversal ones which are about 18-24 inches apart. You can locate the baffle location just by looking at the top of the tank. There is a little bump on the surface right over each baffles. By making an access hole in each baffle, we were able to get a pressure washer in there. The marina used pressurized and heated fuel for the washing process and they would suck it out at the lowest end of the tank. You may have to tilt the boat a little depending on your tank. Once it's done, you have to plug those holes. We used 1/4 inch G10 plugs with a few layers of fiberglass over it. In our case, it was about 10 holes to plug for 2 tanks.[/FONT]


[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Tahoma, Calibri, Geneva, sans-serif]Your marina is right. Don't remove that bronze plate. They did on ours and it was a bad idea. That plate is not meant to be removed. It's epoxied in place. The bolts are just there to hold the plate while the epoxy cures and they will pretty much all break trying to remove them. It took them a few hours to remove the plate and the fiberglass under it was damaged. We tried a few different types of diesel resistant sealant to reinstall that plate and it never held pressure. You have to pressure test your tank after the job. At least 3 psi. We gave up and epoxied it back in place just like Hatteras did. Not worth it. Just make a 2 inch hole right next to it to access that baffle section. One thing we noticed when we were cleaning the tanks is that there were some deterioration of the fiberglass baffles. When cleaning, they would shed fiber material. Not a lot but enough to notice it.[/FONT]


[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Tahoma, Calibri, Geneva, sans-serif]Although we had some issues with the plugs that were badly installed (they had to remove them and do it again), I can say that the cleaning process worked very well. If I had to do it again, a simpler but less effective way to do it would be to make an opening at each end of the tank. You wouldn't be able to clean each baffled section but at least the bottom or the tank would be cleaned. The baffles don't go to the bottom of the tank. There is a 2 or 3 inch gap for the cleaning fuel to flow under and\or even stick a hose under there. In this case, it might require to make a bigger hole on top of the tank to maneuver with some kind of hose. Overall it's definitely a shitty job that you don't want to do yourself. Overall cost in my case was about 4K$ for 2 tanks (Forward tank was 100 gallons and aft tank was 500 gallons) plus the cost of getting rid of the old fuel which was about 3.50$/gallon. Sadly, I'm 99% certain the marina kept it to heat their warehouses during the winter and charged us the disposal cost anyway.... what can you do...[/FONT]


[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Tahoma, Calibri, Geneva, sans-serif]Hope this helps [/FONT]