Has anyone replaced the fiberglass fuel tanks in 1965 B25 express with something different?
I have 400litres on board and was hoping to get atleast 600 but hopefully 800.
in the photos below I see some people have cut out the stringer between the 2 tanks to make one big tank is that safe for hull integrity?
I have twin fiberglass 200 litres each like in the photos been the express model I have twice the space above the tanks you do on the flybridge cruiser.
since you posted a photo of my boat, let me tell you the story of it....
I cut out the center stringer between the 46 gallon fuel tanks and glassed in a piece of 3/4" marine ply the year that ethanol came out (that piece is the 1st section closest to where I was standing while taking the picture). I then ran the boat with (2) 28 gallon tanks for almost 10 years in that config.
My I/Os finally got the better of me and I decieded to convert the boat to outboard power. As a part of it, I wanted to increase the tank capacity and get the weight further back to offset going from twin I/Os to a single outboard. Thus the old battery box was cut out and I added another flat section of plywood and glassed it in. This allowed me to put a 140 gallon fuel tank in that location.
I have not completed this project so I can't comment on how it performs but I do not see any issues with the config that I ended up with, I've reinforced the hull to stringer joint in a significant way and made sure I would not create a "hard spot" under the edge of the flat panels by creating fillets under the edge of the board and then glassing down with 4 layers of 1708 set in epoxy.
We cut the stringer down some (about 3/4 the way) and glassed in a shelve to set a ~100 gal single tank on in a '62 B25 sport convertible I have.
Been using that boat for 3 summers now with no ill affect.
