Diesel Fuel Tank Longevity

[lwight]

While the Albin 25 tank is stainless steel, I understand that failure is inevitable, most often at the welds. I am considering replacing my 1977 tank but would love the Group's experience on this first.

Have there been ANY failures?
How old was the tank?
Where was the failure?
Is it easy to expose the tank, in preparation for replacement?

There haven't been any posts on this topic. Hopefully Group experiences will benefit all of us.
Larry Wight
Friday Harbor

[whwells]

Larry: You may have an advantage with the stainless steel tanks and with diesel. While i have not yet had a diesel fuel tank fail it is likely at some point.
Two of my past boats 27' Whaler and 24' Grady White off shore both gasoline failed with fuel all over the bottom of the boats. Really don't know how we got back in with the dangerous fumes. The Grady had a 25 outboard kicker and that helped. The Whaler was towed in.
So it seems to me facing the problem before it happens is smart. Both my tanks failed from the inside out, but as you point out at the seams.
While diesel is safer and has some oil in the mix they are not without risk. The fuel tanks were both made by the same company in Florida as it turns out.
These were alum. products and I would expect better results with stainless steel. The Whaler was 12 years old when the tank failed and the Grady 18 plus as I recall.
Preventive care is always better. Good luck and go for it.
whwells "Howard"

[whwells]

Larry: It is noted you are from Friday Harbor. Presume that is Wa. State. We have had 3-4 successful years of NW Rendezvous at Cap Sante,
Port Townsend, and this past summer Roche Harbor. This year's meet will be at Port of Kingston. John Reynolds is the coordinator this year.
If you are from Wash. State we hope you will join us at this summer's meet. Take a look at the Rendevous section. I am happy to help with any questions on the subject.
whwells "Howard"

[don123]

My A27 tank is 30 years old (1984 model) and it's aluminum. Aluminum tanks are prone to eventual failure due to water condensing in the tanks and the salt air also corrodes them from the outside. The beauty of stainless is that you don't have corrosion to worry about

My tank was removed, cleaned and inspected about 15 years ago by the previous owner and was given a clean bill of health at that time. Even though it is aluminum and will no doubt need to eventually be replaced, I don't have any plans to preemptively change it - It's diesel and not likely to cause a fire or explosion when/if it develops a small leak. I'll deal with it at that time . . . . if I still own the boat when it happens

If I had a stainless tank, I wouldn't even consider changing it out unless it was in the very unlikely event of it developing a leak and even then, I'd probably just get it repaired - I would rather have your 40 year old stainless tank than a new aluminum one . . . . and when you get a price quote on a new stainless one, I imagine you would probably wind up getting an aluminum replacement

I'm not familiar with the A25's fuel tank location, but perhaps Albin chose to go with stainless because it's next to impossible to change out the tank without cutting up the boat??

Don

[lwight]

You know, my biggest fear is that the tank would leak diesel into the bilge where the automatic bilge pump would pump it into the sea. That's a felony!
I think I'll look at turning off my automatic bilge pump and waiting to smell something. The leak would start small so it isn't like the tank would suddenly empty. Plus, my A25 is on a trailer so there's minimal risk of it sinking after I turned off the bilge pump.
I'm still hoping others will respond.
I think the collective info will help all of us manage this risk.
Larry

[tego]

lwight, I doubt if you'll have a major failure all of a sudden. You can get a bilge sock and put that in the lowest part of your bilge and it will absorb about a quart of fuel if you have a leak. It should take a fairly long time to leak a quart so you'd have plenty of advance warning before the pump would pump the fuel overboard. The bilge socks really do work! Ben

[coolchange]

Not sure why but the PO had engine rebuilt (ground up) and had both SS fuel tanks "remodeled" by cutting the bottoms off and putting a new pc. of ssteel on as a bottom...net result is tanks are now 40 gal. rather than 50 and the gauges are not much help....and I don't have to worry about tank failure...just bad welds

[Komreddi]

I have an 1983 albin43 last year I had to repace the fuel tank because of a nail holding the rubber mounting strips under the tanks wore a pin hole in one of the tanks.i simply cut the side out of the boat and recip sawcut the tanks out.