1st time i smelled fuel
 

1. This is the first time I ever smelled fuel when uncovering my boat (Baja 272) to charge the batteries yesterday. I have a 502 MPI so there should be no fuel exposed to the air like a carburator. I inspected all my fuel lines in the engine compartment, and found nothing that would show signs of leakage.
Are these boats prone to fuel leakage?
2. I have some rust coming from the exhaust manifold where it meets the riser
should I pull this ASAP and or is this normal? It does not leak visibly maybe seeping.

3. The floor just above the fuel tank in the middle of the two bolster seats feels a little bouncy is this normal?



:party-smiley-004:

Your fuel tank is vented to the outside, usually on the starboard side of the hull. If the temp was considerable warmer than the previous day then fumes are likely rising out of that vent....mine does it under those conditions and it's normal. (I even found a near steady stream of fuel expanding out of the tank one warm spring day after filling the boat up cold.)

this it was warmer than usal for our winter but I had the cover on and the vent is lower that the cover. I also have a half a tank of fuel so how much actaully evaps out of the vent

usually that is a sign that the injectors are dirty and dripping after shutoff. hth's

the fuel tank cover on baja 272's is bouncy,I re-inforced my with a cross x underneath made of fiberglass. When I had the cover out of boat I also found that most the screws that hold tank to stringers had missed completely and tank was sorta moving around on its own,Smitty

On my old 272, we would store the boat with the tongue jack up a little. The gasket on the fuel tank sender leaked and fuel ran into the engine bay bilge. I had put some octane booster in it before putting it up and I think the octane booster may have deteriorated/attacked the gasket.

I think you have the plastic access under the seat or forward in the engine box where you can access the fuel tank sender to check it.

For your exhaust, you have gaskets at the joint between the risers and manifolds. I think the risers are stainless and the manifold is cast iron so they expand at different rates when heated, which allows it to leak. You want to keep some gaskets on hand and correct it because it will deteriorate the seating surface on the top of the manifold...then it leaks more and may requires it be machined. I recall those manifolds leaking around the studs too. The studs need to be sealed with some Permatex non-hardenening sealer (#2). Mine was actually leaking water internally back into #5 and #7 cylinders which cost a few buck to fix...after setting all winter like that.

FLOOR FEELS BOUNCY ??? That could be a bigger problem,,foam losent up around the fuel cell and now the tank is cracked,,,fuel gets in the foam and the fumes eat up the glass in the floor.
U may think i am crazy ,,but just fixed a 21 foot boat ,,where exactly that happend.
Once the foam gets lose the tank now bounces up and down in the boat and the aluminum weldings can't take the force and split.
I would take a look,,also i would check the exhaust with your rust problem and see if there is any water leaking on the inside in to your engine,,that would not be good.

Baja uses a HUGE fuel tank access door that runs down the center of the boat that is very flimsy for its size on the 272 models,even when mine was new it flexed like crazy or was "bouncy" when you walked on it,I pulled mine and re-inforced it with some glassed in cross bracing,Smitty