22 years ago when we bought our sailboat, the surveyer missed the
slight diesel ooze/leaks from the main 180 gal diesel Al tank. We
found it after getting beat up on a reach - washed all the crud out of
the dozens ? of crevice corrosion tiny holes that were caused by a
number of s/s fasteners being left in the tank. The solution was to
cut access panels in the beautiful teak soles (ouch), cut the 3
largest size access ports possible in the tank top (it has 2 baffles)
and clean out the tank with paper towels, cloth and acetone and a big
fan. Then take a rotary s/s brush on a hand drill and completely
burnish to shiny clean scraped Al all the floor and walls up to 5-6"
above the floor - vacuum - and epoxy with West epoxy (no cloth) with
the slower hardener to hope to try to get some to "soak" into the
crevices. It's been 22 years and 2 circumnavigations - leaks not a
drop. Diesel has no effect on West epoxy. We've had the tanks open to
clean 3 times since and the epoxy looks like new.





On 29 Mar 2008 10:10:43 -0400, Marc Auslander
wrote:

I have a 20 year old diesel tank that has a small leak at or near a
bottom weld.

I've been thinking of taking it to a heliarc welder to attempt a
repair.

Comments?

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