props

[chietib]

Hello again everyone. Well I have say that ALL of your advice has been very helpful. I've repaired all of the problems and discovered a new repair that needs immediate attention. All 4 of the gas tanks have a large amount of water and rust in them ... hence the engine troubles. So far I've removed over 6 gallons of water from the tanks and a large amount of rust. Short of removing or replacing the tanks does anyone have any suggestions on the removal of the rust and water that is still in the tanks. The way I've removed the water up till now is by removing the vent lines and feeding my vacuum oil changer tube to the bottom of the tanks. This worked well at first but now that the waer is mostly gone I've been replacing fuel / water separator filters almost every time out or the engines just won't run. Each time I replace the filters (which is weekly at the max) they are full of water and covered completely in rust. Do I just keep doing what I'm doing or does someone have a better way? Thanks in advance for any advice you can lend.

[wowzer52]

The O-rings on your deck fill caps are obviously bad. When I had the same problem, I took one of the old ones to Napa auto parts and they gave me five new ones free. However, to fix the problem, because fuel floats on top of water, I raised the bow of the boat in a lift so the water would run to the back of the tanks at the pickup tubes, then I hooked an electric fuel pump to the line just before the filter and pumped all I could get into a white bucket so I could see all the junk. When it finally pumped clean fuel I went to the next tank and did the same, and so on until the tanks all pumped clean, then changed filters as needed, which was only once after that but I do look at them from time to time and so far I have been able to run normally since February and have burned approx. 500 gal. of fuel through the engines without any trouble. If you do this make sure you put a switch in the line of the electric pump so you don't have a chance of making sparks, or, BOOM , big marina in the sky.

[BMac]

I have a 1972 30' SeaRaider with twin 318's. Best speed I have been able to get is both engines at about 3900 RPM's and 34 MPH on GPS with perfect lake conditions and two full gas tanks (60 gals. each).
I am not sure of the prop specs but my boat gets lifted out after Thanksgiving (Canadian) I will check them then and respond.