Cleaning out the bilge

Starbrite makes an environmentally friendly bilge cleaner. Pour in your bilge, fill with water and let it soak several hours or longer. They even suggest to run boat so it swishes around. I just use a long brush for scrubbing bottom. Turn on bilge pumps to drain most waste, shop vac to get rest. Here's my bilge.
I really haven't messed with stuff like that, before, so this is just a 'wondering outloud' type question. The cleaner may be enviro friendly, but what about the oil/sludge that is also being sent overboard? Wouldn't it still be oil and sludge, just dispersed some for ease of cleaning?
 
Dennis’s suggestion to use oil pads is the way to start. The white pads only absorb oil, and the grey/black pads absorb oil and water. The white pads can be simply set on top of the water and they will absorb just the oil. These can also be used to wipe off oil coated surfaces. This process is the standard protocol for oil spills on water.
 
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I use this thing. Much easier on my back.
20200131_155712.jpg
 
You can use the clay based kitty litter for an absorbent first pass. Let it soak and then scoop it out and vacuum it out. I did this with about 5 gallons of diesel when I was removing my old oil tank from my house. Worked great.

Once you get up the oil a good de-greasing cleaner and lots of rags. I would go for the worn out clothes ripped up that you would normally throw away. Once the majority is clean paper towels will finish it off.

-Kevin
 
Dennis’s suggestion to use oil pads is the way to start. The white pads only absorb oil, and the grey/black pads absorb oil and water. The white pads can be simply set on top of the water and they will absorb just the water. These can also be used to wipe off oil coated surfaces. This process is the standard protocol for oil spills on water.

Those bilge socks are made of the same material. I think it is polypropylene or polyethylene fiber. The material is lighter than water so it floats, like the oil, and it absorbs or attracts oil, but not water. I usually toss one under the engines because they are white, will absorb any oil, and also they show if you have any leaks by getting dirty.
https://www.westmarine.com/buy/west-marine--two-quart-bilge-absorber-boom--244822
 
Those bilge socks are made of the same material. I think it is polypropylene or polyethylene fiber. The material is lighter than water so it floats, like the oil, and it absorbs or attracts oil, but not water. I usually toss one under the engines because they are white, will absorb any oil, and also they show if you have any leaks by getting dirty.
https://www.westmarine.com/buy/west-marine--two-quart-bilge-absorber-boom--244822
I ordered one of these (the starbright brand) and i will start with it to see how it does. Then i'll move on to the shop vac, then degreaser, scrubbing, water, shop vac. Excited to see how clean i get it.
 
I like the socks for leaving in the bilge all the time as they'll stay in the V. But as Henry mentioned, I think it will be easier to clean things up with the pads since you can just lay/float them across that water. Plus, you can then use them as rags, too. They're cheap enough it'd be worthwhile to get both. The pads can be used around cars/lawnmowers (oil changes, etc), too.
 
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I want to also encourage getting as much oil out FIRST before just pouring soap down there and pumping the mixture overboard. Cleaners don’t magically make the oil disappear. Just transfer it somewhere else.
Back to cleaning once you get it that way it’s great and easy to spot any new leaks. Good luck!
 
I want to also encourage getting as much oil out FIRST before just pouring soap down there and pumping the mixture overboard. Cleaners don’t magically make the oil disappear. Just transfer it somewhere else.
Back to cleaning once you get it that way it’s great and easy to spot any new leaks. Good luck!

In that regard remember, oil floats on water. As do the white absorption pads. If you spill oil in the bilge, say, while trying to drain the schmeg out of a Racor, adding water to the bilge can make it easier to clean up with white pads, especially in locations like under engines and tanks.
 
Shop Vac here too. When it was on the trailer in the driveway I also used some degreaser and car wash soap and any brush I could find to reach those tough spots. A high pressure hose helped too. I didn't use a pressure washer cause I didn't want to risk peeling bilge paint off or hurting anything else so a regular garden hose was all I used. And for hard to reach 'puddles' I used my oil change pump tank with the small 1/4" hose and got the last drops of water. Not sure why cause after a few outings I always had a little in there anyway but I felt good about it being clean and dry at the time.
 
This fall my Reverso leaked and sprayed all over the bilge while I was changing my oil. Lots of oil in the bilge.

I disconnected the bilge pumps immediately and left them disconnected while I was cleaning to make sure no oil went overboard. Disconnecting the bilge pumps let me clean, spray to rinse, clean again without anything going overboard.

I bought a bucket top shop vac from home depot, which uses 5 gal buckets to make it easier to haul out and dispose of properly. Got lids for the 5 gal buckets to cover them when I was carrying the water and oil out. Lets you swap buckets and keep cleaning without having to dump over and over.

I bought the white oil pads in bulk to absorb the oil from the water and to use as part of the clean up.

I then used Dawn-X, which is a spray cleaner based on Dawn, and it worked great. Worked better than any of the other cleaners I tried. I used a scrub brush with an extension handle to scrub things clean.

Frustrating experience, pain in the ass to clean, but worked really well.
 
I just realized I am missing boating so much that I am looking forward to cleaning up the bilge in the spring. It is so unfair that global warming has not kicked in enough to allow boating year round up here.

On an unrelated note, I gassed up this morning (the MDX, not the boat - sigh) at the lowest price in a long while. CAD$1.09/litre. Roughly US $3.14/gallon. I hope that holds till summer, but I doubt it will. We were up to almost US4.50/gal here last summer at the marina. That was about US$900 for a fill from near empty.
 
Filledup pickup this week was $2.61/gal, hope it stays there all summer!!
 
I’ll share my Bilge cleaning story take a trip to Costco and get yourself a case of paper towels $14 ( probably only use about six rolls) ,hit the Dollar General for a toilet bowl cleaner brush for all the nooks and crannies And get yourself some LA totally awesome cleaner, use a shop vac and a regular garden hose with a sprayer to keep the amount of water down. You Will have that clean within a couple of hours then you can use a circulating fan to dry everything out , Oh yeah don’t forget the six pack when the job is done while you wait for it to dry
 
I’ll share my Bilge cleaning story take a trip to Costco and get yourself a case of paper towels $14 ( probably only use about six rolls) ,hit the Dollar General for a toilet bowl cleaner brush for all the nooks and crannies And get yourself some LA totally awesome cleaner, use a shop vac and a regular garden hose with a sprayer to keep the amount of water down. You Will have that clean within a couple of hours then you can use a circulating fan to dry everything out , Oh yeah don’t forget the six pack when the job is done while you wait for it to dry

Just to clarify, because I may be doing it completely wrong for most of my boating life:
Do you have to wait until the job is done before you start to work on the six pack or can you work on that simultaneously with the cleaning tasks?
 
Just to clarify, because I may be doing it completely wrong for most of my boating life:
Do you have to wait until the job is done before you start to work on the six pack or can you work on that simultaneously with the cleaning tasks?
Depends on how strong your grip is ,gets slippery down there! Lol
 
I just realized I am missing boating so much that I am looking forward to cleaning up the bilge in the spring. It is so unfair that global warming has not kicked in enough to allow boating year round up here.

On an unrelated note, I gassed up this morning (the MDX, not the boat - sigh) at the lowest price in a long while. CAD$1.09/litre. Roughly US $3.14/gallon. I hope that holds till summer, but I doubt it will. We were up to almost US4.50/gal here last summer at the marina. That was about US$900 for a fill from near empty.
It's been 4.50 to 5.00/gallon on our river since we started boating in 2015. Never saw it lower or higher than that. Gas at the roadside fuel stations here is about 2.80/gallon but I was in Ohio today and paid 2.25. Only about 15 miles from my house. PA has one of the highest gas taxes around so being this close to the Ohio line we fill up any time we are over there.
 
Spent some time getting the oil out and then cleaned up the bilge pretty good. Nice and dry now. Went out for a cruise today and after the trip found the bilge to have a little water in it, so i must be leaking water from somewhere. After looking around i think i may have found the culprit at what i believe is the raw water inlet (or whatever it is actually called) see the photo attached (sorry it's upside down, not sure why it does that when i import). I can see drops of water coming off that corroded piece while the engine is running. Any thoughts or advice?
 

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Port side, by the engine mount? That looks like your fuel cooler. Inside that plastic box is both the fuel cooler and the fuel pump. While some verdigris on bronze parts is not a concern, there's more there than what I would consider "not a concern". It might be best to pull it out, clean it up and give it a good goings over. That hose looks to have some issues, as well, but that's not explaining the leakage since the leakage is coming from higher up, possibly where the fuel line enters the cooler tube.
 

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