Audiofn

I am no expert on this but I am looking at the way that it is tabbed in there and think that you probably can. It is hard to know from a picture..... If it is operating as a bulkhead then you can not remove them. These appear to be more to keep the slosh down. Is there anyone from the manufacturer that you could talk to?

justincasey57

dont know anything on these boats besdies it was made by thunderboats inc. in 1991. cant even pull anything up on these boats. I think that they are there for the slosh and support for the gas tank lid. anyone else have any input? thanks

AO31

Justin, as stated before, mine had alum tanks that ran in the same spots as yours and terminated just past the back seat at the bulkhead. Mine was an outboard powered boat. The floor heights were all a little different from one to another.

justincasey57

Well after talking to a few people about cutting the "joist" out or not I've heard that it wouldnt hurt then I had someone else say it might be for support etc. so i have come to the conclusion that I want to be safe than sorry.(I cant find ANYONE that knows anything on these boats, besides I was given the guys name who built it but I couldnt get any info on him either.) So now I plan to order 2 new fuel cells and place them under the front under the deck.I will post pics of where I will place them. Choosing to go this route is a good thing and a bad thing. Bad= I will be getting a lot small tanks and wont be able to hold the amount of fuel I did before.(which I could never use the left tank. it was already messed up) The good= less weight the faster she'll go!)

AO31

Last I heard Bob was in the Ft meyers area building some boats. I'd look further into keeping the tanks in the same location as to not throw the cg off with that much weight in the nose. A full bulkhead in front of your motor might give piece of mind as mine was built with.

justincasey57

Well thats my issue I'm scared to cut the "joist" or "bulkhead" out. and the space inbetween the two is very small the whole area from front to back would be 5ft but as you can see in the pic its not a square holding tank it goes with the lines of the boat. the two tanks I will be putting up front are 2 19 gallon tanks.were I want to place them is in the center of the boat and are right behind the dash. what do you think about doing this? I just cant see cutting the "joist" out on a boat that is 18 years old.(dont get me wrong the boat is in great shape to be a 1991 but I cant see running 80 mph and something going wrong) any suggestions? I will post pics of where I'd like to put the 2 19 gallon tanks.

Audiofn

I would get in touch with Steve1 on the board. He has done a lot of one off building and can probably help you with this question.

justincasey57

yep. I surprises me that they lasted this long. I cant believe that when they were built they didnt have " drop in" tanks installed.Oh well hopefully the 2 tanks I'll be installing up front work out good.(also will be making the boat lighter) I crawled into the front of the boat and someone who had it before me put 4 sandbags and the very nose of the boat in pillowcases.I have looked in the front of the boat a 1,000 times and finally crawled all the way up to the frotn and found them. I took all of them out being that I am putting the 2 new tanks in the front. What is the purpose of putting 2 sandbags on each side at the front like that?I figured since I am puttign the 2 19 gallon tanks up front I could take the sandbags out. any input on this? thanks

Trippin

Do not remove those lateral supports. You could compromise the structural integrity of the boat. Your best bet in my opinion is to have some custom fabricated aluminum tanks with double welds and multiple baffles made to your exact specs, drain the junk out of the old tanks an drill a drain hole at the lowest point to prevent water from accumulating in the old fuel cavity. Reglass the top back on and do like I did with the Skater in the Skater section see the post under

" New Tanks for the 32....

Trippin

The additional weight in the front of the boat probably helped offset that boats sternweight which was causing it to porpoise.
Adding tanks to the very front is one way to resolve that issue although I'm not convinced thats the right way.