My neighbors 22' Seafarer, early 90's, has been sitting for quite some time. He says the gas in the tank is over 3 years old. He recently tried to start it with the old gas, no dice. He ended up having the carbs either rebuilt or cleaned. He has it running from an aux tank currently. What should be done to the tank, if anything, once we get all the old gas out? Thanks.
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3 year old gas!!!
- Thread starter hogheaven
- Start date
DB
Well-Known Member
fastal
Well-Known Member
i was talking to my grady dealer up here about this same issue. they have a deal with an environmental company here in massachusetts. mechanic pulls the fuel sender off the tank, environmental company sucks the old gas out of tank, mechanic puts about 5 gallons of fresh fuel in, swabs around with a small mop, environmental company sucks that stuff out, mechanic puts fuel sender back on, should be good to go.
richie rich
Well-Known Member
Sounds about right if its really that "dirty"...but there may not be any debris from the old gas at all, so just refill and go......if there's a little crud, don't even need that much liquid...actually, you could probably just use a few bottles of alcohol and wet the mop/cleaning brush itself as alcohol will clean it better, evaporate fairly easily, and is much less toxic.....just use a cleaning tool that won't spark and has a wooden handle...ground/discharge yourself before/when doing it.....and keep an extinguisher nearbye, just in case....fastal said:mechanic puts about 5 gallons of fresh fuel in, swabs around with a small mop, environmental company sucks that stuff out, mechanic puts fuel sender back on, should be good to go.
I just went thru this last year. I had to pump out 140 Gals of fuel and was lucky enough to find someone to take it for free. Put an ad out for free fuel and maybe you'll get someone to take it. The guy that took mine used it to mix for a great big trash fuels burner that he custom mixes the fuel. The cost for removal and disposal in the Balt/Wash area for that much fuel was going to be approx $300 for pump out and $275/gal for disposal. That's $710 just to get rid of the old fuel. Don't kid yourself --- The fuel is SHOT and there is NOTHING to do to save it. You'll still need to remove the fuel lines at the engine and be sure that ALL the old fuel has been removed from ALL the lines and filters. Go out and buy at least 3 filters per engine as spares, you WILL need them. Be sure to keep the filers and a filter wrench on the boat. This saved me a tow twice. As for the cleaning of the tank, dump a can of SeaFoam, (Pint) in with about 5 gals of clean fuel. Take the boat out and run it on the Aux tank setup that you said is already running clean. The SeaFoam will shake loose all the crude that is still n the tank. After about 1/2 ride on the water, let the boat sit for about 1 hr and then remove the fuel sender and pump out ALL the fuel. If you can pump the stuff in to a clear container so you can see have much trash there is.
I wish I'd have followed this advise myself. I didn't and ended up contaminating new fuel and had to remove and clean the carbs 4 times. That's 3--2 brrl setups on 2 engines or 12 float bowls.
I actually found out that of the 12 floats, 7 of them were out of spec and have NEVER been touched from factory installation. Don't assume they are "OK" Check the floats if you have the carbs open.
I wish I'd have followed this advise myself. I didn't and ended up contaminating new fuel and had to remove and clean the carbs 4 times. That's 3--2 brrl setups on 2 engines or 12 float bowls.
I actually found out that of the 12 floats, 7 of them were out of spec and have NEVER been touched from factory installation. Don't assume they are "OK" Check the floats if you have the carbs open.
I'm not sure what the swabber is hoping to do, the tank is baffled and you only have access to a small area. If you have a place to store the gas, landscapers have been known to take old fuel, try it.
If it's early 90's and the fuel inside is non ethanol, you're going to have quite a bit of crud going to the filters from the ethanol dissolving the varnish and gunk on the sides. You may want to yank the tank when it's empty to check it's condition and change the lines. Given the age, the runner lines are at their end of life and the tank may have corrosion.
As far as the carb floats, every one needed to be tweaked (12) to get it in spec. It makes you wonder how big the tolerence is for the float height.
If it's early 90's and the fuel inside is non ethanol, you're going to have quite a bit of crud going to the filters from the ethanol dissolving the varnish and gunk on the sides. You may want to yank the tank when it's empty to check it's condition and change the lines. Given the age, the runner lines are at their end of life and the tank may have corrosion.
As far as the carb floats, every one needed to be tweaked (12) to get it in spec. It makes you wonder how big the tolerence is for the float height.
NOTHING ELSE MATTERS
GreatGrady Captain
Well, when i got the Formula, she was seating for 12 years, her belly had around 80 gallons in there, i removed it, i called my landscaper, i gave it to him, two months later he came for more..................