"you guys know where the hose runs go?"
I sure do. You know the old saying, I've got some good news and some bad news"?
The bad news is that saying doesn't apply; there is no good news.
Note- all this applies to what I found on my 1980 53MY; who knows if they were all the same...
Both are very challenging. The forward tank is a genuine nightmare. The pumpout hose runs off the rear of the tank and is extremely difficult to get to because you have to wedge yourself between the top of the tank and the underside of the galley sole. Your ability to do that will depend entirely on your personal thickness. Even if you can reach the fitting, you can exert virtually no leverage. It then runs vertically up the hull to the fitting. There is some good news - you have some access through the mirror-fronted cabinet at the dinette. There is a large access panel at the rear of the cabinet. You can reach the clamps that hold the hose but you can't reach the underside of the deck fitting to loosen the hose clamps. There SHOULD be enough slack in the hose to unscrew the deck fitting screws and lift the fitting enough to loosen the hose clamps/pry the fitting off the hose.
Then you can attach a new hose to the old with a suitable fitting and pull it down through while wedged between the tank and galley sole...IF you spray or somehow coat the hose with something that will make it slide. I used dish soap. Having someone help by feeding/pushing/guiding the hose down from above is very helpful. Once you get a few feet of hose pulled in, you can unwedge yourself and kneel at the front end of the tank and pull more effectively.
The aft (genny room) tank was merely a PITA as opposed to a nightmare. It's a shorter run and less strain getting the old hose out/new hose in BUT, I could not successfully attach the old/new hose and pull it through because there was no leverage available to do that. However, my boat has a glendinning cable master and the cable drum sits in a spot that, if vacant, would have allowed me fairly easy access and, I think, plenty of leverage. There is an access panel in my Star eng room that would allow me to physically get inside that space but I don't know if that panel is normally there or if it was cut out when the cable master was installed by the dealer (Hatteras of Lauderdale) prior to deliver to the original owner.
I suspect my explanation is not very clear; I know what I MEAN but whether I can explain it in writing is a different thing. In any case, this is one of those jobs that you NEVER want to do again so buy the best possible hose. Practice up on your swear word vocabulary; you'll be using it extensively. I don't think I found any new swear words during the job but I do think I came up with some combinations that I had never used before...
