GL: fiberglass tanks and ethanol

[Dave Cooper]

<Bob wrote: If you can coat your tanks with epoxy, it will prevent the
problems with the polyester gel coat.....>

I seldom disagree with Bob but my understanding is while conventional epoxy
is far better than polyester resins it is still attacked by the ethanol.
There are some specialized epoxy coatings that will stand-up to it but they
are nor easily obtained, applied or cured.

Perhaps someone can specifically suggest one that can be used as a coating
for tanks that has been shown to be impervious to ethanol and other new
additives in both gas and diesel fuel. I for one would like to find one I
know of several folks who have gas powered boats with fiberglass tanks.

Ethanol is just a very strong solvent and will dissolve many items that we
have all used for years in our boats.....rubber, plastics, some metals, etc.
Using it as an additive without proper consideration of its "evil side" can
lead to serious issues with fuel leaks.

The various bio-diesels fall into this same category. Depending on what the
"bio" part is they can be a solvent that the original products in our boats
were never designed to deal with. Do you know for sure that your 1983 CAV
injection pump seals can deal with bio-diesel, for example?

Our 1974 Detroit Diesel which is still tight and doesn't leak oil would
suddenly do so if we used a multi-weight additive loaded oil or a synthetic
oil as it would cause damage to the original seals.

As all ways a total systems approach needs to be taken before one changes or
"improves" a systems as Mike says. Often the "improved system" has a totally
new set of issues to contend with and these can be rather dramatic and
costly.

Cheers

Dave & Nancy
Swan Song
Roughwater 58
Caribbean Cruise '07