Carver Owners Forum

I have a 1990 3297 Mariner. First of all, I love this boat. with the cockpit floor lifted there's access to pretty much everything. My wife and I were able to pull the starboard fuel tank quite easily.

We got it repaired and back into the boat. We now need to pull the port tank for a similar repair. It looks like it will come out much more easily because of the shorter profile of the tank. The only problem is the forward strap that holds the tank down. It appears to be about 48" forward of the opening to the engine room almost exactly under the center of the dinette seat. It seems like the way these boats are built there's always a way to get to whatever needs work, but I'm at a total loss for how I'm supposed to remove and re-install this strap.

Has anyone ever pulled the port tank on one of these older mariners? Does anyone know how this is intended to be done? Any hints would be very much appreciated.

Look inside the storage bins under the dinette seat. There may be an access hole in the bottom of that. er

Thanks for the response, cooler.

There are access panels in the compartment in the forward end of the bench. From the panel on the port side of the compartment I can just see the forward end of the fuel tank. The strap would be about two feet aft with only about an inch of clearance between the bench and the tank so no way to reach the strap from there. Unless someone knows the truck to this, I don’t see how it can be done without cutting an access panel in the bench.

if your only issue removing a tank is access to the strap, you should rejoice! Most of these boats require the engines to be removed prior to fuel tank removal.

Well, I finally got to this part of the project. I ended up cutting a couple of access holes in the surface under the bench seat in order to remove the nuts for the retaining strap. I dropped the helm reservoir off its mount and tried pulling the tank, but no joy. The thing is so long that even with the shorter profile there’s no way to get it out through the engine room. _MAYBE_ if the engine was out, but maybe not. It seems like the floor and the vertical supports in the engine room will be in the way.

The carpet is already out of the boat and much of the interior trim has been removed by previous over-ambitious owners. This has exposed a series of screws securing the bench seat fiberglass shell to the floor and along the aft cabin wall. I assume it’s similar near the cabinet at the forward end. That just leaves where it joins the hull on the side. It looks like a single layer of glass was added just to sort of stick it in place. I think if I cut that layer of glass I can remove the entire bench seat shell and that will let me get the tank out. It’s a shame I didn’t come to this conclusion until after I had cut holes in the seat. I was going to install a hatch cover there for access but now I think I will just glass the plugs back in place, fair it, make it look as good as I can and hope to never deal with it again once the repaired tank goes back in place.

It still sounds like a lot of work, but I think it’s going to be less work overall than pulling the engine out and even so I’m still not convinced the tank could come out through the engine room with the seat in place anyway.