Fuel tank suction tube removal

[Scott06]

Helping a good friend boat is a 2002 Glastron 185, VP 4.3 carbed (2 bbl holley) SX drive.

he has owned this boat 15 years very few problems. four or so seasons ago was having surging miss at speed when on plane, so I rebuilt the carb got two perfect running seasons out of it. There were no contaminates in the fuel filter when I rebuilt the carb, and wasn’t much I the carb, but problem went away after rebuild for two summers.

This spring it’s back and he does the mechanic in a can ( and replaced fuel filter) seemed to help, but in last couple weeks more often than not it wont get up on a plane… take it out yesterday gets on a plane til about 3800. Stop to open gas cap to see if it’s pulling vacuum, then can’t get back on plane. Clean gap the plugs, check the cap and rotor, check timing , jumps 3/8” on gap tester, all ok. Take fuel filter off ( was loose-ish) thinking maybe it’s sucking air and we get lucky… dump fuel from filter into jar and after a few minutes sitting it’s milky… filter back on and at least at idle it’s running better, take it out on lake same chit.

open up the hatch to fuel tank and can see the gasket on sender is cracked, take that off to replace, suck a few gallons off tank bottom and there are some skin like cruds coming up… go to take off anti siphon valve and valve is on there tight… final get it to move and threads of AS break halfway… kicker is I can’t get the suction tube to unscrew out of the tank… worried I’m going to break something else…

are these fittings normally a PITA to remove and is it a normal pipe thread? Left hand ? Feel terrible I made it worse…

I was gonna run it on a tank and see if it works , then go back into the carb? am I missing anything here ?

 

[Bondo]

are these fittings normally a PITA to remove and is it a normal pipe thread? Left hand ? Feel terrible I made it worse…

Ayuh,..... Every one I've taken apart were plain ole pipe thread,....

 

[kenny nunez]

That skin stuff you saw is common in older fuel systems. Sometimes it looks like very fine hair. The screen in the suction tube has to come out. The crazy part is if the gas in the filter tube is dried out you will be able to blow through it with your mouth, but with gas it will cause a restriction.

 

[Scott06]

That skin stuff you saw is common in older fuel systems. Sometimes it looks like very fine hair. The screen in the suction tube has to come out. The crazy part is if the gas in the filter tube is dried out you will be able to blow through it with your mouth, but with gas it will cause a restriction.

Funny you say very fine hair, when i emptied the filter into a container you could see something that looked like texture in the gas moving around, almost like layers of gel. Then when it sat after five minutes it was milky…

I ran it on a remote tank yesterday with same bogging, so assume carb needs to be rebuilt again.

who every assembled the gas tank at glastron is a goon, the AS valve was bottomed out in the elbow of the suction tube, last couple threads stayed in the suction tube as the AS valve threaded sheared off…shoulda known I was gonna break it. Suction tube is same way threaded way down in there. I was afraid I was gonna break the tank even with a back up wrench on the nut on the bulkhead fitting .

this may be a moot point as after we did the walk of shame towing it back to his place and pushed it in the hoist, I saw a bunch of cracks around his outdrive, drain plug and where the swim ladder and speedo pito screw and bolts through the hull. I suspect he has transom rot or delamination. Not sure how well glastron were made back then.