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Question....

I filled my tanks at the end of last season and it clearly was cool. Now it is warm, and the normal "burping" is happening. I went down to the boat on Saturday just to check, and she was dripping diesel pretty significantly out of the vent. Except I have not taken off my shrink wrap yet, so it is running down the strap across the bottom.

I plan to pull the shrink wrap next weekend, and then most of the problem will go away with the dripping but I want to give the bottom a quick coat of new paint. Do I need to worry about the paint adhering to the area that is pretty well soaked with diesel?

I will wipe it down with acetone prior to the paint, but... it is nicely stained and I will clearly not remove all the diesel. Should I worry?

Dug

No problem, just wipe it off good.

UV

Dug,

Let the area stand open to air and the fuel stain will probably dry by itself and likely pose no problem to the new bottom paint.

But if you're really worried about it...

Make up a thick slurry of bentonite clay and water, (drilling mud), and paint it onto the affected area, (1 coat). Use a heat gun to dry out most of the water and add another coat. Keep up this process until you have a final layer of about 1/4".

Tape a pad of dry rags over the clay, cover with a piece of plywood and wedge it tight against the hull with sticks. Let it sit for a few days. The clay will draw out most, if not all, of the diesel fuel.

After that, strip away the compress and use a heat gun to further dry out the area and oxidize any remaining fuel. Heat the surface only to the point that it's hot to the touch, but not hot enough to blister the paint. If you have an IR heat sensor gun, the target temperature is 150ºF.

Allow to cool back to ambient temperature and paint as normal.

Dug...

In case you don't have an IR thermometer.. a quick way to estimate the surface temp of 150F is to simply put your hand on it.. most people can't keep their hand on a surface that is about 140F to 145F.