Tonight Melissa and I pumped out the contents of the boat’s leaking aluminum fuel tank into five 5-gallon buckets. We harvested about 23 gallons. The first 20 were relatively clean and the last 3 came from the sump, so there was a lot of dirt, as well as the motor oil I let fall in there while removing the engine’s oil pan. Note to self: don’t ever do that again! Motor oil makes diesel look like honey! And, rather than mix freely with the diesel, it seems to float on top as a muddy goo.

I pumped from the white, plastic port on top of the tank, down through 25′ of clear 0.5″ tubing out the companionway and down the 7′ ladder to a small Harbor Freight fluid transfer pump connected to a short hose and the bucket.  It took about 200 pumps to fill a single bucket.  A drill pump would havd been handy, but tonight was intended as a dry run to see if I could pump that far (five feet up, seven feet down) without problems.

Anyways, the pump-out went pretty well, but when the flow slowed I had to remove the tubing from the tank and put a 3′ long, 1/4″ dowel inside it to keep it straight enough not to suck air. That worked pretty well until the tank got close to half full, and the hose fit too tightly and was creating a vacuum I had to work against. I pulled the hose out a few times to unlock the vapor lock, but disconnecting one of the tank fittings would have worked, too.

After the water and diesel had been pumped from the sump, the next layer was oily mud that coated the bottom and sides. I used a half roll of paper towels to clean out the crud, and sprayed in a lot of Formula 409 and left a rag overnight to sop up more of it. I am not entirely sure the bottom of the sump is really the bottom;  I see a piece of wood and some kind of float switch down there. It might go another 3-4 inches below the board.

Now, five orange buckets line the driveway, and I am hoping to find somewhere that will accept them for recycling before they start to leak!