I had been talking above about the
holding tank. My 32 year old one was was pretty skanky. The head had been replaced in the summer, along with the
lines, but the brown old tank needed to go.
I had carefully measured the locker, and determined that the Todd 15 gal tank would fit. Westmarine was happy to order it for me. I wrestled out the old tank on a cold day, so any residual nasty contents were frozen into a yucksickle. The removal went pretty easily.
So I go to fit in the new tank, and was disappointed to learn that I did not measure quite as carefully as i thought I had. Due to the nature of compound curves, and their fundmental dislike of rectangles, the box was just a bit too big in the forward port corner. I spent quite a bit of time trying every which way to solve this spatial relations puzzle, but it appeared there was just no way to coerce this tank to fit - and it was SO close. I had a decision to make, return the tank the Westmarine, or act impulsively. This of course was an easy decision. I immediately got going with my heat gun and a hammer.
The heat gun did not deliver enough heat - especially on a cold day in January, so I carted the tank home for more heat. I ended up having my firebug 15 year old heat the tank with a torch, so I could bash it on the concrete floor of my basement workshop. We went a little bit at a time, and it turned out to be relatively easy to sort of cave in the corner an inch or so in each dimension. I ended up smoothing up the melted poly using what else but my newly cleaned and polished
propeller that had been sitting on the workbench. It was like icing a cake. I let the tank cool, did a quick and dirty pressure test, and took the tank to the boat. It fit like a glove. Very happy.
Of course, wrestling on all the hoses to the fittings was a frustrating task, but I got it all done, thanks in great part to the application of personal lubricant.
last remaining bit of the task is the nasty old vent
line. Just ran out of time.