Oil in the Bilge

[Kingston Mariner]

Beginning our second season of big boat ownership I continue to make newbie mistakes.

We recently spent a couple of lovely nights moored off the NW side of Blake Island. Not having run the Onan 3kw generator in some time, I wanted to run it to top off the batteries and give it a workout. After an hour or so the generator shut itself down. I restarted it and it promptly shut down again. Crawled into the engine room and discovered oil all over the place. Turns out I did not secure the dip stick and the crankcase pressure burped oil up and out the dipstick/fill tube. At least I know the low oil pressure shutoff works.

I'm now into day 4 of cleanup and pulled the holding tank in the forward bilge. Here's a few pics so anyone interested could share in my misery.

Tank ready for removal:



It looks worse than it is, mostly water:



Looking Aft:




Looking Forward:



Silver lining is this is a project I eventually wanted to take on, just not now. Of course I'm fixing and replacing things along the way such as a couple of severely corroded bonding wires. The bilge will be painted before its put back together. Any paint recommendations?

 

[syjos]

Beginning our second season of big boat ownership I continue to make newbie mistakes.

We recently spent a couple of lovely nights moored off the NW side of Blake Island. Not having run the Onan 3kw generator in some time, I wanted to run it to top off the batteries and give it a workout. After an hour or so the generator shut itself down. I restarted it and it promptly shut down again. Crawled into the engine room and discovered oil all over the place. Turns out I did not secure the dip stick and the crankcase pressure burped oil up and out the dipstick/fill tube. At least I know the low oil pressure shutoff works.

I'm now into day 4 of cleanup and pulled the holding tank in the forward bilge. Here's a few pics so anyone interested could share in my misery.

Tank ready for removal:

View attachment 103928

It looks worse than it is, mostly water:

View attachment 103929

Looking Aft:

View attachment 103930


Looking Forward:

View attachment 103931

Silver lining is this is a project I eventually wanted to take on, just not now. Of course I'm fixing and replacing things along the way such as a couple of severely corroded bonding wires. The bilge will be painted before its put back together. Any paint recommendations?

There are paint specifically made to paint a bilge. I use plain oil based paint. Clean the bilge well with a degreaser first and Simple Green or dish soap to ensure an oil free surface. I first apply an oil based primer, sealer, stain blocking bond coat like Zinsser Cover Coat which eliminates sanding. Or an etching primer. Sanding is best but I skip it.

Then I paint over the primer with an oil based enamel. Wear a respirator or find some way to exhaust fumes.

 

[Lou_tribal]

Repaint all my bilge with pre kote primer then bilgekote paint, happy with it. Nasty odour tough when you use it, better to open all the window wide open.

L

 

[Comodave]

I love Bilge Kote. It is about $80 per gallon but absolutely worth it. It wears like iron. Cleans off very well if you spill or drip something on it. I use Extreme Simple Green to clean the bilge before painting. It is a degreaser from the aviation industry. You can also use TSP to clean the bilge.

 

[Brooksie]

BTW any part of it that was in a mold may still have mold release on it and some builders spray mold release (PVA) on the entire finished product to cure the resin instead of using waxed resin in the final layup. So a good cleaning is in order even parts that didn't get oil on them or it will reject your paint primer and all.

 

[FF]

The big fear with a painted bilge is after running aground HARD it is almost impossible to see if there is structural damage.

 

[Capt Richard A.]

Good morning,
Two things,
1. Where are disposing the oil. ? You actually have suck it out with a wet/dry vac.
Then get it off boat to proper receptacle. I know it’s a pain. I have a trawler.

2. Using dish soap “Dawn” is not good for the environment.
I’ve been Captain for 34 yrs. The old sea dogs rule, move the vessel off the dock, anchor and wash the bilge out with Dawn or engine cleaner. The most rude sailors stayed on dock and dumped at night.
I hated to see that.
So, the best to you , and I agree once your in the bilge you are on a journey,

 

[bayview]

Bilge coat is solvent based so it can stick to surfaces that are not perfectly free of any slight oil film

You do have to get it clean to the point that no oil is visible

 

[Kingston Mariner]

The boat is designed like most I assume with a primary forward bilge and secondary engine room bilge. All the oil flowed to the forward bilge. While my bilge always has water in it, the only time my bilge pumps have ever run is when I manually turn them on and they never ran during the incident and in fact were disabled upon discovery of the oil to insure they did not. Upon arriving back at the marina we pumped out the holding tank and closed all the seacocks to insure nothing would escape.

The clean up started around the generator which is aft of the engines and I worked my way forward. A scrub brush and purple cleaner engine de-greaser was used, mopping up the mess with rags. I followed that up with a wipe down using simple green.

I purchased a cheap hand pump and pumped about 7 gallons of water and oil from the forward bilge into a couple of 5 gallon buckets which will be properly disposed of. The remaining liquid was mopped up with rags, followed by the same clean-up procedure.

The pumps, float switches, and holding tank were removed from the boat and taken home for cleaning. Not a drop of oil ended up in the sea.

Today I sanded the areas to be painted as the surface was quite rough and I wanted it smoother for easier paint application and future cleaning. Plus, there were a few blisters due to insufficient wetting of the fiberglass that needed to be ground out. I've lost track but have about 5 days into it so far. Tomorrow the first coat of paint. It has been a nasty job with a lot of time spent crawling in and out of small tight spaces but the worst is behind me now.

 

[Pete Meisinger]

There should not be that kind of pressure in your crank case. Expect some costly engine repair soon. Your rings sound bad. Crank case pressure is near "0" normally. There may be another source of the leak. Very doubtful it is from the dipstick. Look at the breather tube and the drain plug.

pete

 

[rslifkin]

There should not be that kind of pressure in your crank case. Expect some costly engine repair soon. Your rings sound bad. Crank case pressure is near "0" normally. There may be another source of the leak. Very doubtful it is from the dipstick. Look at the breather tube and the drain plug.

pete

It depends on the engine design and size of the dipstick tube. My old Onan has a very clear warning to never pull the dipstick with it running. Not because of pressure, but because the tube is large (also the oil fill tube) and general oil mist and air movement in the crankcase will lead to a significant amount of oil being sprayed / splattered out. Same story on one of my cars, where the oil fill cap is directly over a timing chain. Pull that cap with it running and you'll have a heck of a mess.

 

[av8r]

Nice boat. Sorry to hear of your unexpected cleanup project.

 

[Kingston Mariner]

It depends on the engine design and size of the dipstick tube. My old Onan has a very clear warning to never pull the dipstick with it running. Not because of pressure, but because the tube is large (also the oil fill tube) and general oil mist and air movement in the crankcase will lead to a significant amount of oil being sprayed / splattered out. Same story on one of my cars, where the oil fill cap is directly over a timing chain. Pull that cap with it running and you'll have a heck of a mess.

I must be mistaken in assuming crankcase pressure forced the oil out and am fairly certain this is the case. There was a fine mist of oil coating everything around the generator. The dipstick tube doubles as the oil fill tube and is about 1.5" diameter. The dipstick has a cap with a positive lock like that on V8 valve cover caps. I didn't get the cap locked, it was loose upon inspection.



I appreciate all the input.

 

[Kingston Mariner]

Nice boat. Sorry to hear of your unexpected cleanup project.

Sister ships I see. Mine spent some time in Anacortes, was previously named Leschi.

 

[Kingston Mariner]

I decided to use white Interlux BilgeCoat as it was the least expensive quality paint. A few pictures:


Forward bilge cleaned up, sanded, and ready for paint:





All Painted and ready to be put back together:

 

[ghost]

Geez. I guess I should say it looks great and say thank you for adding another item to my own list.

Don’t know that particular genny, but my personal luck in oil spewing out the dipstick has historically not gone in my favor of simply having left the dipstick unsecured. It’s possible, but maybe lower on the likelihood scale. I’d test run it for a couple hours under load and close supervision.

 

[av8r]

That looks great!

 

[Lou_tribal]

I did the same and really loved the feeling of seeing the bilge clean bright white!

L

 

[tekdiver]

I decided to use white Interlux BilgeCoat as it was the least expensive quality paint. A few pictures:


Forward bilge cleaned up, sanded, and ready for paint:

View attachment 104234

View attachment 104235

All Painted and ready to be put back together:


View attachment 104230

View attachment 104231

View attachment 104232

View attachment 104233

Makes me claustrophobic just looking at the pics. Nice job! Think wife would have to call firedept to get my old self out of there.

 

[Juggerknot]

Wow, great job. As long as the genset is no worse for wear, you got a huge grimy task checked off the to-do list...

 

[Comodave]

It looks great. We also use Bilge Kote and have great success with it.

 

[Lady J]

Heroic. I have just discovered another guilty pleasure - peering into other people's bilges! Now don't take that the wrong way sailor.

 

[Comodave]

That’s ok, we have a lot of peepers here... Myself included.