Bass boat gas tanks

jamescaird · Post by **jamescaird** » Mon Nov 12, 2007 10:42 am

I'm considering buying a used Ranger from the mid to late 1990s...do the fuel tanks in the bass boats go bad eventually? What about with all these new fuel additives (ethanol, etc...) are there pitfalls to watch out for???

Thanks!

Slippy · Post by **Slippy** » Mon Nov 12, 2007 11:07 am

i wouldent worry about the tanks going bad.

David Rogers · Post by **David Rogers** » Mon Nov 12, 2007 11:19 am

Hi James,
If the boat has been used in the last 3 months I would not worry about it and if its running good, what I would do is ask when the last time it was tunned up, if its been a few years I would put a new water pump, spark plugs and open up the oil res and see how the oil looks, put a long screw driver down in there and pull in out and see if the oil is clean, don't cut corners on maintenance, its $5K to 10K to rebuild a V6 OB. I don't know about the new outboards but my 371V Ranger has a 1986 175 Merc and the top oil res was not filling correctly so I opened the bottom oil res and pulled the plastic pipe that suck the oil out into the top res and the little screen that is at the bottom had a film of thick oil slightly clogging
the pipe so I cleaned it and it works perect. Check everything to avoid costly repair but again I would not worry about the actual tank.

Smile_n_Jax · Post by **Smile_n_Jax** » Mon Nov 12, 2007 4:16 pm

Don't worry about the tank itself, they're made of plastic. Think more about the time the gas has been in there. If the boat's been used recently, probably no need to worry. If it's been sitting for some time, you might want to syphon/suck out the old gas, refill and add some Sta-Bil. I bought my '89 last summer that had been sitting for two years with little gas in it. I just filled it up and ran it. No problems.

Now, no one in the know should be running gas with ethanol in it. Two strokes don't like ethanol. I run Am-Pm 87 octane which is ethanol free and also happens to be the cheapest in the area. No need to run 91 octane. I've read where two strokes are happier on 87.

Ken C. · Post by **Ken C.** » Mon Nov 12, 2007 8:10 pm

Smile_n_Jax wrote:I run Am-Pm 87 octane which is ethanol free...

Jax, don't be so sure - my understanding is that all "Bay Area" CARB gas sold after the middle of October has ethanol. They are finally doing away with the MTBE carp, so of course our elected officials have to legislate some type of "oxigenator" or whatever other product they are getting paid to promote, and that current product is ethanol. (Ethanol is an entirely different issue - but I won't go there right now...

)

The best thing you can do under the circumstances is to know that it will affect any rubber tubing, and it will absorb water - Sta-Bil or not! - so you should have a water separator filter installed between your tank and your engine.