Mark II Fuel tank removal - metal 97 tank won't come out

[Cookie]

I can not get my tank out.  I've read the numerous post and checked out pictures but no help. Thinking 97's may be different.?    The metal tank has two mounting brackets on the front, this prevents you from moving the tank forward by 2 inches (compared to fiberglass one I saw pictured).  I took my fuel hoses and coolant hose out of the compartment and that gave me an exta  1 1/2 inches forward but still no luck.  I've twisted and pried everyway could, even used a car jack to try to get some clearance.  No luck.  With the jack I can just get the very tip of the welded corner out.

Any suggestions?  Think I may have to cut fiberglass or somehow break off mounts.

[Ken Juul]

In most of the Q&A sessions that I have attended with Gerry Douglas, he has made the point that all tanks in Catalinas can be removed without cutting.  They go in after the interior liner is in, so they should also come out.  Which coolant hose did you have to move?  Unless the MKII is much different than the MKI there should not be any coolant hoses near the fuel tank.  Has an extra layer of wood been added to the tank mounting base reducing clearance?  The tank is rotated out from the front, have you tried sliding it back first to get some more clearance.  Hopefully someone that has done this in a MKII will offer some help.

[Cookie]

Thanks, it's good to know the tanks were put in after the liner.  It can be done!

The tank mounting base does not have any extra support, but the top of the tank's mounting "compartment" may have reduced clearance due to the support "lip" of the aft cabins ceiling, but factory stuff.  There is a lip that extends down from the ceiling of the aft cabin, that goes across the tanks area.  This lip looks like it may not be extended across the  the tank area  on other pictures posted on this sites "tank removal" searches for some other catalinas.

In the forward part of the fuel tank compartment there were two hoses for the fuel tank and one hose for an antifreeze/coolant overflow reservoir, that is located in the cockpit lazerate above the fuel tank.

[Ron Hill]

Doug : I believe that you have a Jerry Douglas question. 
Sounds as though it's a problem "beyond the pay grade of our form members" to give an adequate answer. 

[Cookie]

Thanks!  Who is Jerry Douglas and how do I get ahold of him/her?

[Ken Juul]

Gerry Douglas is the Chief Designer at Catalina Yachts.  Contact him at the California factory.  818 884-7700.  Mornings are usually the best time to get him.  If you can take some pictures, he may ask you to fax/email them.

[Michael]

Hi, Doug:

If it is any solace, we managed, not easily, but we managed, to remove the metal diesel fuel tank from Hali, hull #1352, a 1997 boat.  I do not recall (but that doesn't mean much!) Hali's having the two brackets you are describing, but I do recall that we needed to remove the cap of the fuel level sender unit and, I think, one other cap from the top of the tank towards the fore.  There were three of us working on the project, one usually from above, through the access plates, and one in the aft cabin.  I will pull my notes of the procedure and see if there is anything further in them that might help you and, if so, add the information as an addendum or new post here.

Good luck.

Addendum:  In case it helps, here are the notes of our removal of Hali's tank:

Saturday, May 19, 2007 – Lionel, Matt, Michael remove diesel fuel tank from port side of aft cabin. It was necessary to remove a ground line and vent hose from the top aft end of the tank and a fuel sender unit (float gauge) line and fuel feed hose and fuel return hose from the top forward end of the fuel tank and to pull two of the three hoses (fuel feed and fuel return) down below the base of the tank in order to get room to slide the tank off its shelf. The work was done with about 5 gallons of diesel fuel in the tank because we found it difficult to free the fuel feed hose on the engine side of the lift pump. (We had planned on having the fuel lift pump drain the tank but we abandoned that idea when we could not get the hose off a convenient barb.) TTD – Consider adding a drain somewhere in that system between the fuel lift pump and the engine.

Again, good luck, Doug.

[billandalita]

Doug

In the event you are still attemping to remove your fuel tank, here are some thoughts.  It appears that the tank installation is similar to the plastic one on my 2002 C34 "CLEO".  You can reference my problems on removing the tank on posts to this message board earlier this year.  In my case I had to remove the two attachment clips at the bottom of the forward end of the tank.  It took a very very long extension to my socket drive (I think over 18 inches), but it came unscrewed from the floor of the compartment with some careful aiming of the extention to the holding screws.  I had to also unscew the clips from the front of the tank with a small right-angle phillips head screw driver.  Not too easy.  When I replaced everything, I replaced the phillips head screws with socket head set screws.  Much easier to manage.  If you want, I can send a photo of the socket drive extension setup I used.  Otherwise all the previous suggestions as to removing all fuel line inlets, return fuel lines and fuel sensing units prior to removal were valid for me as well.

Good Luck

Bill

[Cookie]

Thanks to all for their help.  I ended up cutting out the fiberglass "overhang" that runs along the top of the shelf to pull it out.  It was not easy and not a small cut.  With all connections removed and only a gallon or so of diesel left in it,  it still came out with much effort. My fault for voicing that this was going to be an easy boat project.  In hindsight, I would have cut out the fiberglass in the lazarette to remove it.  The repair would have been relatively simple.

[Stu Jackson]

Mark II Fuel Tank Removal

In late May 2014 we were motoring through lumpy seas just outside the Golden Gate in Jon Arck's Tweety Bird (#1346), when the engine sputtered a few times, came back, then sputtered and died.  We decided to abort our planned cruise to Monterey and headed back into San Francisco Bay.  Attempts to restart the engine were fruitless, so we sailed into a long side tie dock at a restaurant in Sausalito, spent an hour and a half diagnosing the problem, determined we had clean fuel in the Racor (underneath the aft cabin), the fuel pump was working, but still no start.  Rather than doing further investigation at this temporary dock, the skipper decided to return to his berth in Emeryville, across the Bay, so we slipped our lines, ghosted off the dock, unfurled the jib and enjoyed a delightful sail downwind.  Once tied up in a temporary slip in his own marina, Jon decided to spend the week getting a mechanic to check it out.  He reported to me later that the mechanic had blown into the fuel line from the Racor back to the tank and cleared whatever crud might have been at the end of the pickup tube and the engine started right up.  It was unclear whether he'd blown back through the Racor or just from it.

We met on the boat the next week.  Jon's original intent was to remove the tank and clean it out.  We strategized a lot before even attempting it.  As reported in this six-year-old thread, which Jon found by searching this forum a day or so later, other skippers have experienced difficulties removing a Mark II tank.

In addition to the fiberglass lip at the top, the hoses and wires that run down through the grommet at the forward end of the tank have to be removed to be able to slide the tank forward enough to even think about removing the tank.  The difficulty in removing these hoses (fuel supply & return and the coolant overflow bottle), is that once they are dropped through the grommet, there is no access to get them back up.  Also, those hoses in that small hole are very, very tight.  Jon's thoughts were to either enlarge the hole and/or create an access opening in the vertical fiberglass wall below.  The hoses can't be accessed through the small, narrow door below the head sink.  Jon has not yet reached a conclusion on what he'll do.  

Here are some pictures that show the details.  If anyone has had experiences since this 2008 report, it would be helpful to update us all.

[Stu Jackson]

Closeup of support tabs, grommet, hoses and Racor.  The fuel pump is the square box mounted at the back of the engine.

[Ken Juul]

If you pull the hoses up, will it be possible to re feed them to the right location putting them back in?  Spray silicone or soapy water should help make the hoses slide a bit easier. Maybe a call to the factory to determine how they install would help in reverse engineering the problem.  Technicians not Gerry.

[Stu Jackson]

Ken, my guess is they did it before the deck was put on the hull.

[Jon Arck - Past C34IA Commodore]

Stu, thanks for taking this up.  As always, you're a star!

Does anyone know the baffle configuration inside the metal tank?  Is it preferable to siphon fuel from the fill side to try to remove whatever blocked the intake (or will the baffles prevent me from getting it all -- or nearly all), or to do so from the Racor intake side and filter the fuel through a Baja filter into containers?

[Ron Hill]

Jon : In my 1988 tank there was only one large baffle.  It was in the middle and pretty much ran from top to bottom.  The bottom had a curved cut up about an inch so the fuel could flow under the baffle.

Hope this helps