Replacing gas tank on '79 Overnighter

[2manyboats]

In order to not hijack Mac83's grueling journey of "tank replacement" and based on having read the entirety of his thread, I have some questions.

Quick background: 1979 204C w/ 1986 150 Yammy. Been stored inside for 12 years. Gas tank needs to be cleaned out or replaced. Transom is stiff, but has rot, as does a stringer under the cabin. This is due to water coming in from the hull/ deck joint. At the risk of overstating the obvious, looks like my project will resemble Mac 83's. Holy crap. So:

Does anyone have experience with Seacast as a product for transom and stringer replacement? I helped a friend with a Seacast transom replacement on a small bass boat, but it was pretty straight forward.

Should I just bite the bullet and take the deck off? Surely not a simple task and I have zero experience with this. I took the tank cover off and everything looks okay from above, but....

Short of all this, maybe I should just change out the tank and forget about the rest...I use the boat mostly for striper fishing and knocking about in fresh water.

 

[richie rich]

if youve done the seacast, then you have knowledge and comfort with it......but taking off the cabin isnt easy......how bad is the stringer? how do you know its bad? you can do the tank without gutting the entire boat, but how far do you want to go, a complete rebuild or good and safe enough to do what you do....otherwise youre looking at 2000 to 6000 bucks if you do it or have someone do it..

 

[2manyboats]

Thanks, Richie. After removing the cover, siphoning out most of the gas and inspecting the aluminum tank, it is really in pretty good shape. Very little pitting and not much grunge at the bottom. New fuel lines and sending unit and I should be in business. What stringers I could look at/ poke at all seem real solid. Will get the Yammy tweaked up, use her this season and re-evaluate. I will be keeping a close eye on the transom while under way to see how much flexing is happening.