Well I guess there's polishing and then there's "polishing". Depends on who
does it. When the guys came out to do mine, we opened the inspection port on
the side of the tank. They put the suction line in through the fuel fill,
and had a hose with a length of copper tubing for a return. Acted like a
pressure washing wand. They blasted all over the inside of the tank, going
into each baffled section as best as they could. It could have been better
if we had inspection ports in each section (which I do now), but was pretty
effective, and better than nothing for sure. When we emptied the tank and
installed the inspection ports a few years later, the sections were pretty
darned clean. I attribute that to both the initial polishing and the use of
Soltron/Startron. Oh yea, and my onboard "polishing" system.

Keith

If a 911 operator has a heart attack, whom does he/she call?
----- Original Message -----
From: "Mike Maurice" mikem@yachtsdelivered.com

They blasted all over the inside of the tank, going

but

REPLY
Keith I'm curious about how effective the tank "blasting" actually was when
only one inspection port was available.
Also you indicate that you added additional ports later on. In retrospect,
was the addition of the additional ports a significant technical improvement
or was it as much a peace of mind kind of deal.
Some boats with belly tanks simply do not provide access to much of the tank
top area unless you rip out the interior bulkheads and or built in cabinets.

regards
Arild

Well, these tanks are on the sides of the boat. They are widest at the top,
and follow the hull curve down to their inside wall, so the lowest point in
the tanks is the junction between a vertical wall and the sloping side; no
flat bottoms. There are cutouts at that point at each baffle, so we could
pass the tube through there and blast all through the tank, at the lowest
point. I couldn't tell you how bad the tanks were to begin with... one of
the few times I didn't take pictures of something. I do know they got a fair
amount of crud out. They were using a stacked disk centrifuge to clean it,
which was interesting in and of itself. Like I mentioned earlier, I shocked
the fuel with Soltron before they did this, then have used it ever since and
never had any problems. I can tell you that these guys worked really hard at
trying to stir up the tanks and getting all the crud out. I think they
filtered each tank for maybe three hours, and probably half of that time
they were in there working that wand around, breaking stuff loose as best
they could.

The reason I added the other inspection ports was that there was a tiny leak
somewhere in the tank. We added three other inspection ports in the inside
SIDE of the tank, not the top. Used these: http://www.seabuilt.com/ When we
opened the tank up, I do have pictures of it. There was almost no sludge,
maybe a slight coating, less than 1/8" or so. Mostly what was on the bottom
appeared to be rust particles that had dropped from the top of the tank,
where the diesel hardly ever touches. I don't fill my tanks so that it
gushes out the vent for obvious reasons, and probably leave about 50 gallons
of empty space in there even when I fill up. At any rate, the tank was
pretty clean when we installed the other inspection ports. I hope to never
have to open them again! Oh yea, to stop the leak, we cleaned the inside of
the tank very well, sanded to bright metal and coated with aviation fuel
tank liner. Worked great.

Keith

Why is the person who invests all your money called a broker?
----- Original Message -----
From: "Arild Jensen" elnav@telus.net