Posts by chris oak

Mayans must have had a clue about the MPA closures, also known as End Times.

Sorry I had the wrong http address, it's corrected now.

This is only going to be of value if you have a small boat with an under deck fuel tank.

The complete description with pix is here: http://oakpower.wordpress.com/…89-boston-whaler-outrage/

Text only is as follows:
Changing both hoses took me about 4 hours, mainly because I spent a lot of time cursing and trying to figure out how to fix things that happened unexpectedly. I think if I had a better game plan it would take about two hours.

Background Info: My boat is a 1989 Boston Whaler Outrage 19 (18.5') with a Honda BF130 4-stroke engine on it. I keep the boat at my house and usually fill it up with gas on the way home from trips. I noticed that ever since I owned it I'd have problems gassing it up. Sometimes the fuel nozzle would just keep clicking and shut off and I found I'd have to put the nozzle backwards to get it to fill correctly. Lately though, it wouldn't take much fuel at all before stopping. Even if I filled up the gas slowly it would keep clicking the nozzle like it was full and I knew that I still had at least 10 gallons to go.

Most people suggested that there was a problem with the fuel vent hose or possibly the fuel fill hose. The easiest problem to fix would be if there was a blockage in the screen on the outer vent (against the port side of the boat). I disconnected the vent hose and took the screen out and it was clear. I tried blowing air into the vent hose but it only bubbled slightly so I used a compressor to blow more air into it (with the gas tank cap off) and saw the gas rise in the tank towards the fill hole and then recede back very slowly. My buddy told me that I should be able to blow into the vent very easily with just my mouth, since it was so hard to blow into that hose I figured that there might be a blockage or delamination in the vent hose. Since my boat is over 20 years old I figured it was time to change those hoses anyway.

Here is a list of what I used/bought:

new 4' Trident 1.5" A2 hose
new 9' Trident 5/8"A1 hose
new stainless steel hose clamps (4 for each hose, 8 total)
wire lube from home depot (you definitely want this or something similar)
1" ratcheting strap (this was a huge help)
diagonal cutters
soap/water/brush
lots of rags
wire and duct tape
nitrile chemical gloves
rubbing alcohol
shop vac
masking tape
Dap almond silicone caulk and caulk gun
razor blades and utility knife
silicone spray
o-ring grease

The first step was to take off the kick panel and rectangular floor panel on the port side of the boat, right under the gas cap. The screws are just phillips heads and come out very easily. The floor panel is held on with caulking, I just cut through it with the utility knife and it came right up.

Once I removed the rectangular deck plate I was surprised to see that the fuel fill hose had a 90 degree plastic elbow. Most of the Outrage's that I read about had just the 1.5" hose bent with no elbow. The bigger surprise was that the vent hose was completely blown on the outside and delaminated. This was going to be a major pain in the ass because it had swelled up and there were tiny bits of hose swollen up everywhere. I immediately knew that removing this hose was going to be a problem because it was now about 10% larger than the stock hose, I could not budge it when I tried pulling on it.

I'm not sure what would cause that delaminated hose but I have some guesses. Either fuel leaked out or spilled out in there and rotted the hose or else it could have been a bacterial degradation from all the nasty water that built up over the years. That entire area was completely gross and smelled like a sewer. I removed the circular deck plate by the center console and the fuel fill hose access was right under it, you could see the hose clamps on the fuel tank. The big surprise was that the vent hose connection were no where to be found! In all of the pictures I had seen both the vent hose and the fill hose were connected to the tank right under the round deck plate. At first, I thought maybe they had connected the tank somewhere under the deck before it was put on the boat which meant that there would be no access without removing the deck. I am glad there were no kids around because the words that came out of my mouth would have left them scarred for life.

I thought maybe there was some access by the twin battery cut outs under the console so I disconnected both batteries and pulled them out. No sign of the hose. Then I thought maybe the hose was connected somewhere under the forward cooler right in front of the console. Sure enough, I pulled the cooler out and under it was a second round deck plate. I opened it up and there was the vent hose connection.

I thought about it a long time, there was no way that the fuel fill hose was going to move until I got rid of the vent hose first. I removed all of the hose clamps and of course could not get the hose to move off the elbow. I ended up cutting a slit on the side of the hose to widen it and then pulled it off the elbow. I could not budge any of the hoses no matter how hard I pulled. I drilled a small hole through the old vent hose and also the new vent hose. I attached the hoses together with bailing wire and then taped a lot of duct tape over both ends to try to make it as uniform as possible. I cut the vent hose in half (it's not really in half, more like 1/3) right where it went under the first round deck plate.

This is when I started to doubt my abilities and started thinking I was going to have to tow that boat to a shop and pay to have those hoses redone. I needed a break to think so I went to home depot to pick up some wire lube, it's the stuff you use to pull wires through conduit. I know I could use soap, etc but I've seen soap break down plastics over time when it isn't washed off immediately. The wire lube is supposed to be safe on all wire coverings, and since wire coverings are plastic I figured it would work out okay.

I kept thinking that what I needed was some sort of winch. I kept imagining having a gigantic shop winch to yank that hose out and then thought about buying a hand puller (come along) winch. But that would be too big and I'd have to have some sort of shop crane to use it. Then I remembered that I had a ratcheting strap in the garage.

The ratchet was rusted shut but I used some wd-40 and was able to break it free and make it work. I attached one part of the strap to the hose and used the other end on my boat cleat. I lubed the heck out of the old hose the best I could and also squirted the lube under the deck by the hoses and started using the ratchet. Very slowly the hose began to back out. I had to loosen the strap and keep putting it back on in different spots but slowly was able to back out the hose. I did the same with the forward part of the vent hose and saw it start pulling the new connected hose through the hull. Success! I'd stop and re lube the new hose every few feet and it slid right through.

Once the vent hose was out I now had enough room to work with the fill hose. The fill hose was quite a bit larger (1.5") and also would not budge. I took off the hose clamps and then used a pair of diagonal cutters and a sharp razor blade. The razor blade would cut down the hose and stop at the inner metal coils so I'd have to cut it with the diagonal cutters and then start the razor again. It would have been faster to use a jig saw or dremel but since the hose has that wire inside it, if it sparked it could ignite the gas and blow me and the boat up! It took a while but I was able to make slits and then spray some silicon spray into the ends and wiggle it free.

Once the ends were free I used the ratchet again, lubed up the hose and slowly pulled the fill hose through the channel. It took some time and I had to restart the ratchet every once in a while but it worked out well, I was careful to watch the deck and the hose. I didn't want the deck to start splitting or the hose to tear away.

Once all of the hoses were removed I used the shop vac to vacuum all of the broken hose pieces out and then scrubbed every part I could reach with dish soap/water and wiped everything dry. I pulled the rest of the vent hose through and slid it under the deck and up the wall. I added the springs on top of it so it wouldn't collapse and zip tied a anti siphon loop. I also lubed up the main fill hose and slid it under the deck and attached it to the elbow with two hose clamps. The easiest way to slide the hoses on the fittings was to put some rubbing alcohol on the inside of the hose and the outside of the fitting, with a little push the hose would slide right on. The O.D. of the new hoses must be a slightly smaller than the originals, they both slid right under the deck. Since a lot of whalers don't use the elbow to connect the fill hose I didn't use the old one either (that would make another place where a leak could occur). I had left the hoses out in the sun before I put them under the deck and that helped out tremendously, they were fairly easy to work with and also enabled me to bend the fill hose in the 90 degree bend where it would go under the deck.

I tested the new vent hose by opening up the gas cap and slowly blowing into the vent hose. It was an amazing difference. It was very easy to blow through and I heard the gas bubbling in the fill hose. I made sure all of the hoses had double hose clamps on them and I carefully removed the gaskets under the circular deck hatches and cleaned and lubed them with o-ring grease. Once I put the rectangular hose access plate back (I scraped off all the old silicone and cleaned off the edges with acetone) on the deck I masked the area off and put a bead of tan silicone and smoothed it out and removed the tape. I put the kick plate back in and was all finished!

Dan when that time comes you guys are going to want to talk to united anglers and the watermans alliance as well as the dive clubs down in southern california. I'll draft a list of things this week and send it to you.

aloha uluabuster and welcome to this site! My sister folks live in oahu, ewa beach area :).

Lee and florida guys, keep an eye on what's happening to california. I've heard florida is watching us closely to see how they will go about their own mpas :(. Learn from our mistakes!

Quote from yellowtailslayer

im sorry but not trying to be a dick but that statement u made is bs. if they made spearguns illegal then they need to go after guns, knives, fishing rods and all other forms of catching and killing animals. also ive seen pics with h&l guys with over limits short fish and any other possible thing u could think of. remember that gws caught off the pier by h&l? theres probably been more stabbings on oceanside pier over fishing spots then divers shot with spearguns. again sorry to sound like a dick but i just had to say what i felt.

rip laguna. i gave u the shaft on my last dive there, literally and figuratively.

Really? Ever notice that crossbows aren't allowed for certain types of hunting? Never underestimate enviros brother. Hook and line allows you to release fish "unharmed". Having noobs shoot shorts and post pix about shooting illegal stuff does not release those said fish. There is also a lot of stigma about the pain spearing causes fish vs. fishing.

BTW it is illegal to stab people with a knife ;), just because people do it doesn't mean that it's legal.

It is truely the younger generation who will suffer the most. Especially because I have a feeling this is the tip of the iceberg of the bullshit that is coming up later. Increased license fees. More regs on fishing gear. More regs on take and limits. Shit someday it might be some lottery drawing just to see if you get a lobster tag.

We can try not to lose any spots but we have to be careful that spearfishing isn't tarnished by talk of tear offs, mis id'd and shot fish, overlimit pix, spearos accidentally shooting each other etc. My real fear is that someday spearguns are going to be outlawed.

Once again I hate to bitch about it but weridboard is going to be a major downfall towards spearos everywhere in california and possibly the u.s.

Sorry to digress, Don Paul, but I'm still pissed about the closures. RIP Laguna, PV and certain areas on the frontside of cat.

Is that a thresher Don?

Merry Xmas guys, hope you get some time in the water over the holidays and best of luck to you next year when the MPA's go into effect. Dive safe!

Woo hoo, a boy too, congrats!!!!!!

Come on guys, let's not turn this site into THAT OTHER FUGGIN SITE.

Nice Vid

Don I still remember your talk at the james and joseph event in sd last year, amazing stories. You should think about doing a book or at least a blog, I live for reading stuff like that

Isn't the sporasub one similar to the cayman hf? I don't think I'd ever drop 600 on a railgun, out of curiosity why are you looking for a 105cm gun Matt? My favorite goto gun is a 120cm rabitech and I have a 90cm that I use for hole hunting and halibut.

I've shot/owned a few railguns and now stick with rabitechs, I do a lot of shore diving and boat diving and I'm fairly hard on my gear, I want a gun that can take beating.

I know a lot of you guys use these for your dive gloves (I'm going to try them for the summer, I'm too much of a wimp to use them in the winter). They are on sale for 4$ but you can use their 20% coupon and get it for 3.20 :), they also sent me a mailer to get the gloves for about that.

Mechanics Gloves - Large

Way before I was a freediver I used to go watch the boat parade and saw you guys with the dragon, my friends who didn't know any better said it was the Neptunes, they are a scuba club :). Years later once I started freediving I ran into Scotty Defirmen (sorry scott I spelled that wrong) and learned it was a freediving club, I actually saw part of the last dragon go up on auction at their yearly auction. He said the city required too much insurance and bs from you guys and that was that. Man I really miss seeing that dragon, that's real history.

x2, I use 20mm bands on my rabitech 120. Different rubber manufactures have different rubber and some stretch a bit differently. I usually cut mine a bit longer and then cut them back as needed.

That was badass Ben, thanks for sharing. I laughed out loud when the hali dodged that shaft, I've had it happen before and I still can't believe how often they can do it

Except in captivity they have never attacked a human being. However keep in mind because they are mainly up north they probably have not seen many freedivers so who knows what might happen if they start showing up around here all the time. The general concensus is that they are smart enough to tell the difference between a seal and human.