Diesel in the Sump

The sump continues to collect diesel.  I believe the water in the sump was displacing the diesel and now that it’s been removed the tank can leak freely.  I need to empty the tank rather than continue sucking the leaky stuff out of the bilge.  The problem is, I am not sure how much is there and how to go about properly disposing of it. My wife is getting sensitized to that diesel aroma.  It takes about 3 washes to get it out of a pair of blue jeans.  My GoJo hand cleaner works well for my hands.

Cleaning the Head

Continuing the cleaning process, I cleared out the head area.  There’s no plumbing in here so it’s just kind of a closet with a big cutout in the wall for the holding tank.  I found a tub of mixed hardware, many of which were mild steel drywall screws that had rusted.  I did find a few jewels in there:

1) The mounts that secure the top of the companionway ladder were cleaned and installed.  Now it’s not quite as scary decending the ladder!

2) Several of the strikers for the cabinets.  These are just in fair shape, but it helps having the original equipment as a place to work from.

Lots of Formula 409 and scrubbing were required to restore the head to some kind of order.  Packed away the following items:

• two marine fire extinguishers
• a big roll of 3″ wide fiberglass tape
• a couple blocks and strips of teak wood
• about ten bottles of gold and silver paint with some brusheds that the PO had used on the logo.  I’ll give these to the Girl Scouts for Christmas projects.

The following items were trashed:

• lots of wood putty, silicone and so forth
• some sheets and discs of wet sandpaper
• a rusty sparkplug socket and a miscellany of rubbish

Electrical

The wiring is pretty nightmarish.  The fuse panel is hanging from its hinges and I noticed it has both AC and DC breakers in the same box.  That’s only marginally scary. The thing is the AC side is directly opposite the ground bus bar.  About the scariest thing was the battery charger AC input was wrapped and taped and just kind of hanging.

I spent some time tracing out the wiring.  That battery charger was actually pretty useful in that it allowed me to confirm which battery leads were which.  The color means nothing, unfortunately.  I wired in the group 27 12V battery I was using for the sump and played around with the panel.  I found that by turning on the POWER switch and the CABIN lights I could get the cabin lights to turn on.  Three interior lights and the forward Engine bay light was working.  The rear one looks to be missing a bulb.  I haven’t dared to try any of the other switches yet because there is a lot of abandoned wiring.