This project has become a project after certain events unfolded in a day of doing some routine maintenance on a recently purchased Southwind Cruiser. Captain Broken Finger (1980Nordic) and Chromey came by to assist....

so the day started off trying to get the interior out.....that was quite a task in itself.....



next was trying to replace the rubber hose that connects the filler neck of the tank to the filler flippy cap things. they were leaking very badly... we were determind to replace the 2 inch long hose without having to remove the tanks...





....then shit came to a crashing hult when we got to the drivers side....the filler necks are cracked around the welds....so the tanks need to come out. Apparently, the tanks were glassed in before the cap was attached to the hull...its nearly impossible to remove the tanks witout doing some serious reconstruction. The seat boxes the interior mounts to (that is glassed to) needs to be removed. Then the gunnel supports need to be removed.....mind you, these are 27 gallon tanks that are TOPPED OFF....chromey spent a lot of time syphoning the gas out of the tanks and putting it into some cars. He only got about 75% of the gas out of one tank......i still got over 30 gallons of gas to move.

Do you know how to tig weld?

Nick does Cj22

one of the upsides of the day was the easy fix on the 'knock issue'.....there was a loud rapping 2-3 times on the valve cover when you first fired up the motor....turns out the rocker stud had backed out....







anyways....this project to remove the tanks, get them welded up, re-glassing them back in....put it all back together (including re-carpeting it) will be done by next weekend. It wasnt what I was expecting to find today when we started. But its better to knock it all out now and have the peace that its done and done right.

in short, this was me after being up for over 24 hours and knowing i was only getting 3 hours sleep before my next shift...all after the epic failure of a day trying to get it done so i could hit up lake mead in the morning.

yes, chromey brought one of those syphons over.

i learned a valuable lesson about syphoning gas with your mouth once.

josh (chief broken finger) has a uncle or something that can weld them up for me.

So what are you going to do with the rocker issue?

we just put it back in with some red loctite....it should hold good. there was no serious damage done due to it.

Right on. I know how big of a bitch it is to cut out tanks. I just took the ones out of my Tahiti. Get some cut off wheels and a pry bar.

There is a total of 5 tabs on each tank that hold it in....i got the 3 that are on the floor, but there is one that is back by the transom thats impossible to get to and the other goes behind the gunnel support. I figure if i remove the gunnel supports, they will slide foward out of the rear glass in tabs....then i can slide them in and put in new gunnel supports after that then re-glass the floor tabs back in....

im trying to avoid removing the seat boxes the interior sits on at all costs. they are solid, but can use some touch up glass. removing them will result in them being destoryed and having to be rebuilt and re-covered.

forgot all about this, thanks for the laugh

you get my e-mail

yes sir....i emailed brian to make sure hes got them for the right size. i probably wont hear back until mon

Even though it has a few problems ( what boat dont ) its still a very clean ride... Good luck with her.


Oh and Brad , you look like shiat......... Go to bed

thanks.....1.5 more hours till im off and im goin straight to bed. its been a REAL long night.

ill pull the tanks in the afternoon so i can get them welded first thing on monday.

Sooooo, you gonna put the number "CJ5150" on the sides or what?    

GT

Chief Broken Finger came by today....we emptied the rest of the gas into the liberty's tanks for now and managed to remove the tanks without too many issues. We were able to remove the gunnel supports and slide them forward and wiggle them out without having to remove the seat boxes the interior sits on.







The cracks....





and we rinsed out the tanks...

the aftermath....







....and the crack in the floor 



and the jacked up glass work on the seat box 

This is a redneck backwoods fix, but that has never stopped me before..

When you get the tanks back in the boat, cut a block of wood the height of the distance between the deck and the top of the tank at the filler necks, then when the tanks are in jamb them between there at the filler neck, it will give the necks a rest and keep the strain from breaking them again, the tanks look too long to do it the "right" way, although I have another idea, but would get more involved...

GT

Have you found anyone you weld your tanks up? I know I'm pretty far from you but I can do it. Let me know.

-Zach

yes, i am still looking for a place to take them....im going to make some calls first thing in the morning.

thanks for the offer, but i need to have these things welded no later then tomorrow afternoon so i can get them back in the boat and glassed in by tomorrow night. I am trying to get a local guy to come carpet it first thing tuesday morning.

I said this is a slam session, i wasnt jokin  this thing will be on the water by the weekend.