Hey all,

I'm curious if anyone has some good tricks for keeping their bilge clean when on the lift. It seems much tougher when you can't leave the drain plug out to let water out. I'm buying a wet dry vacuum to get the day's worth of wet swimsuit water out of the bilge.

Anyone have any other good tips or tricks to keep the bilge clean?

Question that needs t be answered first. And that is how much oil is in the bilge??? How environmentally friendly do you want to be? What some of my friends have done is pour in as much hot water you can befor the pump will start. Put in some dawn detergent and a few tennis balls and go for a long ride. The agitation of the detergent and the friction of the tennis balls will clean eveythng out. Add more hot water and pump it out or get in the water to drain it

3pointstar

I like the tennis balls idea, but wont they float? How much hot water are you pouring in?

As much as you can get in without the bilge turning on. That assuming you have an automatic bilge. Yea the tennis balls do float but with all the motion there is enough friction to clean it. Now I'm also assuming you are not trying to remove 3" of packed grease. Also I've used simple green full strength and let it soak before you add the hot water

3 pointstar

My typical situation isn't an inch of packed grease. It's just the usual water that sits right below the bilge pump that gets gross and dirty.

This should work for you. I'm anal about the bilge. If you forward me your email I can show you a picture under the engine if you think I'm joking

3pointstar

i pull all of my bilge plugs.... If the blige water has oil/grease, I just hold a 5-gallon bucket under it.

Get a long handle tire/wheel scrub brush and some Dawn. Fill it up, scrub it down, pump it out. Simple.

Yarrr

I had the same boat with the same power and the bilge was tough to keep clean and mine was stored on the trailer! Add the rust from the trim pump brackets and it was enough to really make you crazy! I have seen a few bilges repainted when the motors were out and I always thought that would be something I would want to do.

I just pour in a little of the bilge cleaner that you can pretty much buy anywhere, I like the citrus scent. If there is no water at all, it just sits there until there is enough to "swish" around. That said I rack store my boat so it's almost always dry. The last time my bilge pump was used (actually had enough water) is when I had bellows let go....