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Les Marsdon

Hello,

Hi Carl.

Don't know if you will remember me but my wife and I bought a 40 foot cruise a home in 2002. We still have it and have done a number of upgrades. She is no longer powered and is in permanent position, really a floating cottage now. I have a problem that I hope you can steer me in the right direction. We have developed a leak in one of the fuel tanks. Very old diesel is getting into the bilge and now we have developed a list to starboard. I think the list might be due to fuel being in the starboard tank and the port side being the one leaking into the bilge. Do you know what fuel fill cap goes to what tank? The engines and out drives have been removed and the transom glassed over, engine compartment used for storage. Any ideas on how I could drain the tanks to get rid of the old fuel? I don't want to tear up the floors and remove the tanks if I can avoid it. Any info would be greatly appreciated. Hope this finds you well Les Marston

Ocean falls B.C..

Hi Carl Thanks for getting back to me. I appreciate your knowledge. If I have a way of pumping out the diesel it would be used in an incinerator we have here for burning garbage so disposal is not a problem. The problem is getting it out of the boat tanks. I don't need fuel tanks anymore and would not replace them and since removing the engines and outdrives we are a bit stern lite so still need some weight back there. I can't tell what fill cap corresponds to what side fuel tank. There is two fill caps on the port side deck but they aren't marked port or starboard. Do you happen to remember what one is for what side? I am thinking I might fish a hose down into the tanks and use a transfer pump to pump them out. I am open to suggestions Thanks again Les

On Sunday 1, 2017Oct, at 10:59 PM, CARL TENNING wrote:

Hi Les,

Leaking diesel into the bilge is a serious problem. I had rusting gasoline tanks that had to be replaced. Actually, it wasn't really difficult to remove the tanks. I would really recommend removing the tanks. But, you'll have to have any old fuel pumped out first. Could the diesel be pumped into another boat?

Alternatively, you might find a Fuel Polishing firm to take the fuel.

I've passed this on to another CAH owner. Wait and see what he has to say.

Carl Tenning

On 10/1/2017 11:46 AM, Les Marston wrote:

Hi Carl ---- Hello Les

OldBoater Dean here. CAH owner for 36 years and self-proclaimed guru re: CAH's. Unless someone did some major reworking, CAH fuel tanks (and water & poop tanks) were centerline; not port or starboard. The fuel fillers on the port side were thus: fwd filler for fwd tank; aft filler for aft tank. If your boat has developed a tilt, I'd be more inclined to believe it's just because the heavy stuff (refrigerator, stove, sink, closet, built-in dresser) is on the starboard side. All CAH's had a slight tilt that way....perhaps it's accentuated by removal of the engine weight. Later CAH's had a second 50-gal. water tank under the dinette. If you kept it full, the tilt went away. (50 gal. X 8 lbs./gal. = 400 lbs. Lead weights could provide the same balancing weight.) The "big" hoses from the fillers have some pretty severe curves; I doubt that you could get a siphon hose into the tanks from the fillers. But, from the hatches in the cabin deck, you should be able to access the fuel hoses coming from the pick-up tubes in the tank(s). When I needed to pull my fuel tanks, I attached a 12v. electric fuel pump to the existing fuel lines from the tank to the engines, and pumped away. (Of course, I had run the fuel down to as low a level as I could, so only had five or ten gallons in each tank. If you have a lot of fuel in the tanks it'll take a while longer.) Are the lines from your deleted engines still there? That same pump will pump the fuel from your bilge as well, but you'll want some sort of filter on the end or the normal bilge debris might plug it up. Boats with diesel or diesel residue in their bilges stink. Even after the spilled diesel gets taken out, they'll still have a residual diesel smell. There are people or products who claim to get rid of it, but I have had no experience with either. My guess is that you might need to look into that situation. Carl is right about removing the tanks. Not a huge job, but it requires demolishing a couple of bulkheads. My guess is that they're at least partially rotted out anyway. The factory said the bulkheads were not structural after the house got put on, and if your boat doesn't go to sea any more, I'd see no reason to replace them. Question #9 in Carl's website addresses the bulkhead pros and cons, and obliquely addresses the removal of the tanks. It's been a while, but I could still give you some hints, if you decided to take on that task .

Good luck!
OldBoater Dean