The Four Hour Job.....5 Days Later

Updated

....of actually disconnecting the engine hoses, throttle and transmission cables, fuel lines, grounding wires etc and be ready to lift the Wester Beast off and into the air free from it's motor mounts is a fairly accurate assessment of the actual time it takes. But that's not a cruisers reality.

   The first day (Monday and Tuesday) I tried with what I had on board, some block and tackle, pry bar and various blocks of salvaged woods from land. OH! Did I mention I'm doing this job while floating off of a mooring in the harbor?
     This was not enough ummff for me to work alone and comfortably hoist this beast into the sky for even the short time it takes to build a cradle under it. I also in this one day (cruiser time) managed to get most of the  actual fuel tank free of any straps and most wooded framework out of the way for the no doubt future flawless attempt to get it's 80 gallon mass past the moved engine, into the cabin, then out the companionway hatch to rest gently in the cockpit of my lovely yacht....stay tuned!

The next day was spent running around (backpack at the ready) on free buses out into the boon docks of Vero Beach to acquire the proper tool for the job...a one ton chain fall that a guy can trust while working alone under a Wester Beast of such proportions. $10 bucks a day rental.

   So the next day (Wednesday and Thursday) I managed to lift and lower the bitch, six or seven maybe nine times before I got the cradle high enough to clear the sole/floor. That's so I could roll the Wester Beast out of the way to make room for the fuel tank to breeze by when the time comes.

 Here it sits very comfortably on it's cradle that you can't see, along with the 1" PVC pipe under that cradle, that let me roll her on forward smashed up tight to the galley door. It's out the way.... but gawd almighty it's it's smack dab "in" the way!!!!

 After it was well situated and out of the way but also in our way,  jammed into the doorway forward, I was able to play around, at that end of fun day time, sloshing and mopping all the diesel after-math and debris with all the long lost screws and all the other shit that gets lost over the years under such a Wester Beast. !!!!But Wait!!!!!  The true meaning of this picture above is, this was the next morning after cleaning. The pink puddle is how much fuel (they dye it you know) leaked from the tank in 12 hours. Proof that these past two days, is a step in the right direction.....no matter how much one might think that it SUCKS!

  So now we come to the fifth day, which was basically all morning running around on buses (literally running with a chain hoist in a backpack so I could catch the return bus and not wait an hour) returning the hoist before being charged another day. Shit like that takes the wind out of your sails man, you need heavy get-er-done attitude after a morning like that. I prevailed....I siphoned out  approximately 50 gallons of diesel fuel into as many 5 gallon jugs as needed and filtered them too. At first I could put that little pink hose drawing diesel (see it?)  right into the filter on top of the jugs, but as the tank emptied I had to get lower, so here you see me filling a gallon jug one at a time and then filtering it into the endless jugs. Thanks Jay, my neighbor, for having a bunch of extra empty diesel jugs.

What a week it was....living the dream!

Update:    How nasty can the inside of a fuel tank look?