I pulled 26 gallons of fuel out of the 35 gallon tank and gave it away to anyone who would take it. Needless to say it was gone in short order. Now getting the tank out of a Westsail is a bit of work. Mind you the engine is removed so that did help greatly. I did have to cut the corner of the shelf it sits on.
You can see the shelf I cut and the cockpit drain and hose I removed. I had reattached the hose as you can see.
I also had to remove the cockpit drains and hose in order to make it so the behemoth would come out. This would be the same cockpit drain I re-bed not to long ago. It took about an hour to get the tank out. All in all it wasn't too bad to remove I guess. Being that the Westsail 32 has a engine room really helped. At least I didn't have to remove any furniture like some boats do!
And here is the tank looking down on me laughing. I'm sitting in the engine room it is on deck.
Once I took the tank home I was able to give it a better look.
I found that I could not read the tank plate.
The outside only had two surface rust areas on forward end. These were not bad at all.
I shone a light in the tank and used a mirror to look inside. There was very little crud and I saw no rust. Over all the tank is in great shape. But I will have the shop make two new ones. One for the port side and one for the starboard side. The tank above came out of the port side. It was an option to have two tanks but this boat only had one. I think it will serve us well to have two tanks with 35 gallons each. With two tanks it should give us a motoring range of about 538 mile figuring that we will burn about .65 gallons an hour traveling 5 knots an hour. Actual mileage may vary...
The new tanks might be shaped slightly different so that they will be easier to get in and out. But I do not plan on taking them out ever again once they are in!
I am having them made of 14 GA. black iron (mild steel). This is a normal metal to use and will last a lifetime if I take care of them. A lot of people are making them out of aluminum these days but I the price I am getting the steel tanks for is so great I can't say no. (Thank you...you know who you are!) I had the option of stainless steel but doing research found that the welds start to leak after a few years compared to steel. Plus the coast guard does not like to see tanks made of stainless steel holding more than 20 gallons.
Being the tank that came out is 39 years old I think the new ones will last just as long. They will get several coats of paint and possibly a tank sealer put inside just in case.
Once the new tanks are fabbed I'll post about them and the install.
I'm still working on the engine at home. I will be installing all new hoses, gauges and sending units. I am designing a fuel system that will allow me to "polish" the fuel. I hear there is some nasty fuel in some of the places we want to go. So now is the time to plan for it!
FYI if you want to see another Westsail 32 that is being refitted down in New Orleans take a look at Tate and Danni's Sundowner. It has some great history and they are preparing it to make some more! I get a lot of great input and ideas from them!
Looks like your old tank was in way better condition than mine was. The new tanks you have made up will almost certainly be straw feeds from the top of the tank instead of a gravity feed from the bottom like that old tank, so make sure you're ready for that if you reorder/reuse your fuel hoses.
ReplyDeleteTate, thanks for the heads up.
ReplyDeleteI will be making the tanks with a top feed and have a bottom 3/8" cleanout. I could then make them bottom feed as the original one was. I will be using all new hoses and solid line for the fuel system.
Did your new tanks have a access port on them? I am debating on if I should put them as you can't really get to the top of the tank. With the bottom 3/8" clean out I could use that for fuel polishing.
I have read as much as possible about bottom feed tanks and only see that it is not "suggested" due to a draining of the tank if a hose broke or something. But on a top feed you would get a siphon effect from the tank also if a hose broke. (FYI to now Westsail 32 owners the tanks are above the engine level.)
Any one else have thoughts on the feed from the bottom of the tank for engine supply or fuel polishing?
We went with no access ports on our tanks as the top of the tanks isn't accessible anyway. Just something else to worry about. One thing you do want to be sure of though is that when you install the fuel pickup line in the tank that it has no mesh in it. A lot of those things come with a mesh built in to prevent picking up gunk, but really you should let that stuff get picked out by a good filter instead of the pick up tube. If the pick up tube gets jammed, you're hosed. And as far as the pro/con about the pick up tube, I'd rather a siphon than a bilge full of diesel. ;)
ReplyDeleteIn our setup we have a simple set of switches that allows us to switch between tanks independently and also switch between the filters. I've been thinking about adding a 12v pump behind the primary filters. That would allow us to polish fuel if we wanted.
As far as YOUR fuel polishing setup goes, I'd just use that 3/8" cleanout and route it through the polishing setup. I see a lot of chatter online about fuel problems but I've never seen anyone that regularly treats with biocide complain too much. I think that may be some of the key to diesel zen.
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