Replace or rebuild???

[Scudrunner]

So where are you boating, as Ambler pondered? Trying to look at a map with lousy interweb connection. Looks like the Platte runs through it. Navigable? It’s been a while since I’ve seen the USA in my Chevrolet. I’ve been surprised by the size of the Missouri.

Just curious.

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The Platte isn't navigable. I'm debating whether to trailer the boat to Maine in the spring or start the Loop from Omaha, down the Missouri to the Mississippi, late summer and then winter in Florida.

[tribologist]

Still working on my fuel tank inspection hatches project. Tank is out in my workshop. Found some very stiff 10 gauge 8" X 8" plates that I'm cutting & drilling along with sheets of 1/8" Buna-N rubber gasket material. Pictures are still in my phone, so none to post here.

What's wrong with the tank? Did the baffle come loose? Mine was pretty water filled and terribly gunky and needed a new suction tube but some hot water and dish soap cleaned it out good. I would dread cutting a large hole in it and have to have a flat gasket to worry about. Its enough for me to have the fuel gage seal to worry about. I keep a sheet of sorbent on the top of mine and also under the tank in case I have a leak. I ended up overfilling it the last trip in the fall up in Lake Champlain.

[tribologist]

We run a little 40A generator with two fridges, bowthruster, autopilot, wster kettle…. Never drop voltage and it seem ok in that wicked hot box of an engine room

[DesertAlbin736]

tribologist asks

What's wrong with the tank? Did the baffle come loose? Mine was pretty water filled and terribly gunky and needed a new suction tube but some hot water and dish soap cleaned it out good. I would dread cutting a large hole in it and have to have a flat gasket to worry about. Its enough for me to have the fuel gage seal to worry about. I keep a sheet of sorbent on the top of mine and also under the tank in case I have a leak. I ended up overfilling it the last trip in the fall up in Lake Champlain.

I had detected some traces of diesel ending up in my bilge sump, so I emptied the tank by siphoning contents into jerry cans & using that fuel in my diesel pickup truck, then pulled the tank & brought it home. I taped off the inlet pipe & pressure tested it with compressed air to check for leaks using a spray bottle with diluted dish some. Found a small pinhole leak in the weld seam on the narrow/outboard side of the tank. Fixed that with steel reinforced version of JB Weld epoxy. Figured now's a good time to visually inspect the tank & looking through the hole for the float gauge saw modest amount of gunk in the bottom. So I'm cutting in inspection ports. Found a local source for 11 gauge sheet/plate they could cut into 8" X 8" squares with a press brake machine. Was going to go for 10 gauge, but 11 gauge is the thickest they could cut with a press brake and is plenty stiff & enough to tap for fine threads. 11 gauge is a little over 0.11" thick, a shade less than 1/8th inch, so it's pretty stiff. Also found an online source for 1/8th inch thick Buna N rubber diesel proof gasket material, six 12"x12" sheets $44. So I'm making two hatches consisting of two 'rings', inner & outer, through bolted with countersunk #10-32 flat head machine screws to 'sandwich' the 18 gauge stainless of the tank with gaskets above & below to make a flat mounting surface. Then a top plate with a gasket (all corners chamfered 1.5" in from the ends to make it octagonal). The top plate is tapped for 1/4-28 NF thread Allen head screws. The screw holes in the gaskets are very tight fitting & the rubber is #40 softness grade, along with using thread sealer, so seepage through screw holes should not be a problem. I've got the first hatch mostly finished. The baffle is intact. From the outside you can see where it is from spot weld dimples, but it is intact, so I need a 2nd hatch to access the other end. I have pictures but they're still in my phone & will upload later. It's been slow going because a lot of other things have been taking up my time the past several weeks. When it's all done I'll pressure test it again to be sure there's no leaks. The area under the tank is filthy & way overdue for degreasing & a coat of bilge paint.

The process is similar to this blog post, except I'm working with stainless steel instead of aluminum and the hatches are square with chamfered corners instead of round. Stainless is much tougher to cut than aluminum, so making circular cuts with a jigsaw is out of the question. My costs are about half what a pair of those pre-made Seafit ones are. I'm using a 4" pneumatic angle grinder to make cuts rather than a saw.

https://www.threefools.org/velocity/Pro ... sPlate.htm

Another thing I can do when finished & refill the tank with fuel is get a definitive answer as to how much fuel is actually left in the tank when the gauge reads Empty since the float is over the tapered part of tank and not over the deepest flat part. Is it 1 gallon? 2 gallons? 3 gallons? How low can I safely let it go to when the boat heels over 20 or 30 degrees in a rough beam sea? Certainly don't want the engine to stall & be airlocked in that situation, especially in a blow & caught on a lee shore. And how much is actually in the tank when it reads 1/4, 1/2, 3/4, and Full? My gauge is not electric/electronic, but a simple mechanical float sight gauge you read by looking through a hole in the floorboard directly over the tank. I can then post a spreadsheet on the dash with those numbers, and with known GPH burn rate can have an accurate estimate of engine hours & NM range remaining at any fuel level and conversely how many gallons needed to refill at any fuel level read, thereby minimizing chances of an overfill spill. Not to mention being assured of also having a squeaky clean tank. We're heading into our 9th year of owning La Dolce Vita & it's been at least 10 to 12 years if not longer since the tank was inspected or cleaned using your dish soap & hot water method.

[WillieC]

My tank cut fairly easily with red and green handle tinsnips. Don't leave any "hair". It hurts.

[tribologist]

I made a stick by filling a gallon at the time and then I inscribed the lines in one of the wood beams so I can make a new dip stick as needed.

[tribologist]

I don't think I would trust JB weld long term. Its hard to bond to stainless in the first place and JB is strong in shear but not that strong in peel. Just have someone TIg weld it. They were not welded with argon on the inside but that is advisable. 18 gal is 2.4 cu ft. I pay about $50 to fill my 40 cuft argon tank so its maybe another $25 in gas to do a decent purge of the inside. The weld job is a real trivial task.

[Scudrunner]

Very, very good advice above. I would like to add another thought…how far out do you venture with your boat? If it’s a good distance from help, that is something else to consider as well as how mechanically inclined you are. I am very mechanically inclined but am seriously considering repowering my a25 with a new beta. I have a Perkins 4.108 now with what I consider low hours and it runs absolutely perfect. That being said the 4.108 is known to always have a leaking rear main seal and I’m not exactly happy with how it’s mounted. Although I have VASTLY improved that. When I got it and apparently since the motor was installed in 1993 it was never even centered in the boat. It’s dead on now but that took some modifications and lots of patience. It’s now at .002 runout on the flange. My wife is terrified of boats and I really don’t want to scare her if the Perkins s quits in the water. We will see what I end up doing

Which Beta are you thinking, the 25 Atomic or the 30 Atomic? Will your drive match up with the new Beta?

I retire at the end of the month and will be in Maine, hopefully in April. We'll get together.

[DesertAlbin736]

Kimball, Nebraska is pretty centrally located right on I-80. "DA'ing" could become the new verb "Scudrunning".

Here are some road mileages from Kimball to...

Blaine, WA, gateway to San Juans, WA, Gulf Islands & Desolation Sound, BC: 1,395 miles via Ogden, UT, Boise, ID, Yakima, WA, etc. That's 200 miles shorter than our route from Phoenix.

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Tonawanda, NY, gateway to Erie Canal and the "Triangle Loop": 1,430 miles, 1,000 miles less than coming from Phoenix.

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Annapolis, MD, gateway to Chesapeake Bay (go see Ambler on Patuxent River) 1,606 miles, close to how far we drive to Blaine, WA.

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Point is, now that you're retiring the world is you oyster if you have time, funds, & inclination for long road trips. I have been retired since 2010, coming up on 13 years in February & let me tell you, the time slips by faster & faster. At the age of 71 I may not have much more than another 13 years left. Certainly less than 20 active years. So if you want to do it, now's the time. Maine should have some good cruising. Bar Harbor is most distant at 2,141 miles, but you traverse western NY state on the way & could do a bit of Erie Canal on the way back after the canal opens for the season at the end of May.

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Meanwhile STAY WARM and have a Merry Christmas!

[JeffersonCottage]

Just looking for a recent pricing to have new Yanmar 315 installed in an Albin 28 TE 2002.

[Scudrunner]

A little change in plans. I did retire but as fate would have it, I was offered a 6 month contract for an incredibly amount of money. So now the plan is to take the boat to Maine in October and wait until spring to get her in the water. I'll sort things out but the engine seems to be sound. I'll have all summer in Maine to decide to repower before I head south on the ICW.

[DesertAlbin736]

Remenber, Maine has only two seasons, Winter and July.