Slight petrol smell in Cuddy

[Bigplumbs]

Now I hope this is not a big problem but you never know.

In the cuddy cabin of my Fletcher 19 Sports Cruiser GTS there is a faint smell of Petrol. I know boats tend to smell a little like this but was wondering if the other GTS or GTO owners on here have the same thing. I am hoping that I have not got a leak from the tank (I cant see any other signs of this) as I have no idea how to access the fuel tank

Dennis

[BruceK]

Cant advise on leaks or locations but I'd check to see where the breather pipe routes and is in good order before panicking. And as your boat is in a tent and probably heated you could find that the cabin becomes a convenient sinkwell.

[Bigplumbs]

Cant advise on leaks or locations but I'd check to see where the breather pipe routes and is in good order before panicking. And as your boat is in a tent and probably heated you could find that the cabin becomes a convenient sinkwell.

I hope you are right

hopefully Anna will chime in and tell me how to access the fuel tank

Dennis

[mlines]

Is it carb or injected?

If carb then there is fuel in the float chamber that can give a fuel smell when left standing.

[Bigplumbs]

It is the card version. I hope that is the reason

Dennis

[BruceK]

The cabin is almost certainly acting as a sinkwell. Are you ventilating it? The cabin on my boat does. Drives me mad if someone is on deck or in the cockpit having a ciggy. Even with all the hatches, vents, doors etc closed the stink still gets in. Easy to see why CO is such an issue and why monitors are actually built into the boat electrical services where as firealarms are optional (mine at least)

[annageek]

Sorry to disappoint, but I can't recall ever smelling petrol in the cuddy on our 19GTS. Not to say that all are equal! I can't even remember smelling fuel (however faintly) when working in the engine bay. That said, up until recently the flame arrestor has always been so gunked up with oil that it may well be an effective seal against low pressure gas (petrol fumes) sneaking out, and therefore trapping the fuel smell in?

Assuming the worst and you have a leak, having completely replaced our tank with a bigger one, it strikes me as though there are several things that could potentially have happened.

To access the tank is a bit of a pain. Basically you have to lift the whole deck sole up - The screws round the edge of the sole will do it - however, if your boat is anything like ours, the captured nuts that the screws tighten into, they'll have rusted up and seized to the point they'll still turn but won't fully undo, making drilling them out impossible (I think the captured nuts were stainless, but the capturing part was galvanised steel!!). Al are accessible, but difficult to reach. You can get to all of the rear ones from the big centre hatch, a helper armed with mole grips and slender arms may well help! For the forward screws you need to remove the lower carpeted panel attached to the bulkhead inside the cruddy. This is just screwed in, but the carpet hids the screw heads, so it's a bit of an easter egg hunt trying to find them all! With this away, you should have good access. Finally there is one screw on the diagonal part of the cockpit sole, behind the helm seat. On ours, we have a factory fit speaker in the seat-base just above it - with this speaker removed, I could just about get the mole grips to this offending screw too. In all, of about a dozen screws, I think only 3 came out without having to get onto their nuts with the mole grips!

The sole will now lift up - once you've fought the silicone sealant holding it down.

The fuel tank is fitted in a water tight cavity. With ours, I was surprised to find about 6" of water all around it - my guess is some of the cockpit sole sealant was imperfect and had leaked. As such, the water, which had probably been there for years, was slowly but surely causing pitting corrosion where there were any close fitting parts of bulkhead/straps/wooden batons holding the tank down! I think the tank is 3mm 6061 aluminium and some of the pitting was about 1.5mm deep on ours! Could it be that the same has happened on yours and the pitting had worked all the way through the full 3mm? Let's hope not, but that's the first potential failure.
On ours, it was clear that there had previously been a leak from the rubber fuel hose leading to the engine. In fact, the old perished rubber hose was still in there, cable tied to all the wiring running aft, with new hose alongside. It may be that this hose has reached the end of its life in yours and has finally cracked/started to leak.

Furthermore, the fuel hose was never really all that well supported along its whole run back to the engine compartment. Therefore I wouldn't be surprised if it has failed elsewhere along its length.

When the new hose was fitted to ours, the fuel shutoff valve (accessed in the little storage cut-out beside the helm position) was completely bypassed. I've seen a few of the same boat without this fitted, but if yours has this, then that is another (unlikely) leaky component.
Refitting is fairly easy - but allow a good few cartridges of a decent adhesive sealant to seal around the underside of the deck sole! FOr the screws, I'm sure just A4 stainless nylock nuts and penny washers was be OK (proiding they weren't over tightened - as the backsides of the holes go through a step-shaped moulding, so there's no flat surface to fasten onto). On ours, I made up some close fitting ply open-topped 'boxes' that had the contour of the underside surface cut into the top. These were held in place with sikaflex, and I syringed toughened epoxy through the screw's clearance hole. Once this had gone off, I drilled and tapped these holes, and had a really good, corrosion-proof blind fastening system that appears to have worked well!

One thing you might do it just sniff about under the round fuel sender access hatch and see if the fumes smell any stronger under there.

I'm sure this goes without saying, but obviously, if it does turn out to be a leak steer clear from using anything sparky when removing the deck sole! No electric drills or the like!

Let's hope it is just fuel vapours coming from the carb!

Sorry for the long one, but hope that helps

[Bigplumbs]

Anna

Many thanks that is very helpful indeed and very detailed. You should have been born a boy

I was at the boat again today with my wife and the slight smell is defiantly there and it is the same smell in the engine bay. Given that the boat is in the tent and I cant smell petrol anywhere else I am hoping it is just general smells from the bay getting to the cuddy. I think if there was a significant leak from a hole in the tank I would be smelling more petrol.

I will have to ponder on this s while

Thanks

Dennis

[mlines]

Talking to James who is on and off boats all day, petrol boats in general do smell of petrol when stored with all their covers on. Our bayliner did and a monterey 180 we have does as well. Not a strong smell but a general fuel/oil/grease smell.

Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk

[Bigplumbs]

Talking to James who is on and off boats all day, petrol boats in general do smell of petrol when stored with all their covers on. Our bayliner did and a monterey 180 we have does as well. Not a strong smell but a general fuel/oil/grease smell.

Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk

This is what we have in the cuddy. My wife says it isn't petrol as such just engine smell. Here is hoping

I have to decide whether I am just winding myself up or do I actually need to do all the work Anna detailed just to check...... Decisions Decisions

Dennis