A27 Sport Cruiser Fuel Tanks

[SkipRocks]

I just received my replacement fuel tanks for our A27 Sport Cruiser. Had them built by Luther's Welding in RI. They've built them before and have the specs, but I'm not sure about the A27 FC which has different tanks. These are 50 gallon saddle tanks on the Starboard and Port sides. A modification that was done is to cut out an offset for the fuel and return lines. The original tanks were installed before the deck and you can't reinstall the tanks with the fitting sticking above the tank top. Now for the fun part... R&R

[TorreyWP]

Nice looking tanks!

I love when boats seem to be built around critical components....

I had a hell of a time pulling my tank (single 70 something gallon) out of my 27FC. Surprisingly though, it did fit out through the aft cabin after removing some trim and other bits.

How did your install go?

[Beta Don]

I've seen boats on the yard where they had to cut a 4 foot by 8 foot chunk out of the side of the hull to change tanks and then fiberglass the boat back together once the old rusty tanks were replaced with new - That also involves repainting the entire hull. Ours may be a bit difficult, but we're still better off than many

Don

[SkipRocks]

Sorry for the late response to Torrey's question. Well ... they're in. Clearance between the decks is about 1/2" less than the height of the tanks. We had to cut the existing fuel fittings off the top of the tanks and then used used two hydraulic jacks to "stretch" the vertical dimensions between the decks just enough to make it work. The yard I was in during the repairs said that if they were doing the work they would have just cut the upper deck out, removed/reinstalled, then re-glassed the deck & stringers into place. I did stiffen the stringers on both decks while I was at it because there was a bit of popping and snapping during the extraction. The aft deck is now significantly stiffer than it ever was before.

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