Making progress down in the bowels of the boat

OK so after a couple of days of grinding and grinding and filling and more grinding, well you get the picture. Actually there are no pictures yet do to the fact that there is nothing to show that you can see. I was filling and smoothing the very rough glass work in the area of the hull that will be the inside of the port side fuel tank.
I also decided to do some other work that is needed while I had all that space to work in. First there was the issue of two sea-cocks that were questionably installed and then the reinforcing of the main bulkhead to hull joints.
I also ended up working in the aft end of the bilge. I had cleaned it all out and decided to try to get all the heavy grinding done before I cleaned up, again.

I had built water tanks in between the stringer aft of the shaft log.This is the glass work on the forward side of the forward bulkhead of the lower tank. It really is just for reinforcing the joint. The other side was glassed in some months back and tank filled for a couple of day to test the joints.

Once that was done I made a small filler piece to seal off the area under the shaft log. It would have been a very difficult place to access to keep it clean. So I just sealed it off and glassed in the forward side of the shaft log as well. So now there is no recessed space under the shaft log , the forward face of the log continues all the way to floor of the bilge.

I did install a 1" tube under the two center line tanks to drain the area aft of the tanks where the rubber shaft
( read leak) is located.This is the forward end of that tube where it exits just ahead of the new glass work.

I wanted to get this work done before I built the gray water tank into the bilge just ahead of this area. Once that is in the access to this area will not be as good.

Another project was figuring out better limberholes through the stringers in the engine room. The way they had done them was to cut notches out of the stringer and then try to wrap the glass work into them. It did not work for sh*&. They are always clogging up and I do not think they are really sealed so water is getting into the stringers.

I made a 1-1/4" Dia. Fiberglass tube, drilled out the original hole and puttied the tube in with fiberglass resin putty filler I make. I thought about just using PVC tubes, but I worry that the polyester resin will not bond to the PVC well enough to assure there are not leaks into the stringers over the years. I do not want to have redo any of this work...

Getting ready to build portside tank

Spent yesterday on the demo of the tank supports, cleaning and grinding. The grinding is the best part, lots and lots of fiberglass dust. Nice itchy fiberglass dust.

Started the day with the area looking like this....















Fist step was to vacuum out the 30 years of dirt and rust. Next up was to tear out the tank supports. You can tell where they were attached by the light colored spots where they were taped in. It was easy to remove these due to the fact that they were so lightly attached to the hull. And only in 2 spots per support, you can just see the stripes where the supports were. I guess the builder figured the tanks were so heavy they would hold the supports in?????

Here is one of the pieces of glass work I ripped out. It looks like maybe 2 layers of 1.5 Oz. Mat.

They did not adhere to the teak? framing members at all and came of the hull very easily.
Fiberglass will not adhere to teak due to the oil in the wood...

I had reinforced the tank attachment at the aft end of the tank before the starboard tank decided to leak. You can see where I ripped the their glass work off. Notice that it stops where I added the new glass work. Had to cut that part them grind it down...again.

This is what 2 hours of grinding will get you.
Notice the dark spots. The final glass work was very uneven, the dark spots are the low spots which I will rough up and fill to get a more even surface for the inside of the tank.
It just keeps getting better and better...at least I do not have to crawl around in a cramped space to work on this one.

Out with the old...

                                                                           
 

 
Finished up cutting the old port side fuel tank up today. Here it is in the yard next to the boat. The orange-redish color is the outside and the blackish is the inside. Got a lot of practice with the cutting torch cutting the tank into pieces I could carry out the door by myself.Stuff is heavy.
The bottom of this tank actually was not as bad as the Starboard side tank was. But I did find several spots where the steel was very deeply pitted. So out it goes. I could not imagine having to do this job after we have the whole boat rebuilt and are living on her.

Here is a shot of where the tank use to be. Notice the big hunks of rust that were on the back side of the tank, where you would never be able to get to to paint or clean. But you bet the water can get there!!!

So tomorrow I get to clean the hull up, rip out the old support that are left and get ready to build the new tank. I am hoping this one will go a lot faster with better access and the experience of the Starboard tank.

Final testing and Filling of Starboard tanks

 Finally finished the starboard side tanks. I had some issues with getting the bulkhead fittings and the inspection ports to seal. But I found a thread sealant that did the trick. I also ended up making a tool that I could use to pressure test the tanks. The problem is that you only want to test them with 3 PSI of pressure and finding a gauge that is accurate at that range is hard. Car tires normally have 32 PSI in them. So here is the near final product.

I still need to add the acorn nuts on all the cover bolts and build the walls up to the underside of the

salon floor. That will create storage spaces on top of the tanks that are accessed though hatches in the salon floor.

This one of the access covers.

I have started on the port tank removal. I cut a hole in the top to start cleaning it out.

that is what the bottom looked like when I opened it up. I will take some more shots tomorrow to show you that the crud is about 1 inch deep!!!