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From: Gene Gruender (no email)
Date: Thu Sep 20 2001 - 22:51:30 EDT
I just came back from a maintenance trip to Rainbow Chaser. We haven't
really used her since we returned from cruising 2 years ago. One of the
things I checked was the fuel tank.
What a mess! I thought I'd taken enough precautions to avoid problems, but
I found a completely gunked up tank. Fortunately, the cleanout I installed
a few years back made the fix pretty easy, but I'm puzzled why I had the
problem.
History: in about '95 or `'96 I cut a large hole in the top, cleaned it out
completely, then installed an access panel . Since then I've always bought
fuel at places that moved a lot of fuel, and I've used biocide every time.
I opened up the cleanout about 2 years ago, maybe 2 1/2 and it was clean.
Now I found about a quart of black goo, plus the inside was coated with a
black dust-like layer.
This was obviously a case of at least algee. What else? Any thoughts as
to what else to do? Obviously some of the self scrubbing systems some of
you use would help, but will it prevent this? There were a number of gobs
of something that resembled fishing worms in size and shape, but were just
goo, also. The very bottom corner had a big mass of solid goo.
The tank is now spotless and free of any water, plus has 5 gallons of fresh
new diesel, complete with biocide. I think I'll just plan to pump it dry
every 6 months or so and put it in my truck, then start over.
Any thoughs would be welcome.
Gene Gruender
Rainbow Chaser
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