Cleaning bilge advice

[pebble77]

Hi there

 

I'm looking for some advice regarding cleaning my very oily and sludgey bilge.

There was a leak in my gearbox seal so loads of oil (I means loads) and sea water had been marinating in the bilge for ages when I bought the boat.

I have removed all the liquid, as much as I can anyway, (went to a recycling centre fyi)

But now I'm left with a slimy dirty coating across the bottom and sides.

What is best to remove this? I have some autoglym degreaser...?

 

Any advice would be appreciated 

TIA

[Tracy D'arth]

Bio washing powder will break it down.

[pebble77]

So scatter it around and then ...?

Do I add water?

[BEngo]

Mix about 500g of washing soda (available in the supermarkets in bags in the dhoby stuff area for about a poud) with a couple of gallons of water.  Hot if you can do it, if not, cold, even seawater works. Swab the bilges with this.  An old floor mop and a dish mop help. Pump out and rinse, pump out and finalise the last bits of water with some cheap disposable nappies.

 

As recommended by The Bergius Company.

[ditchcrawler]

15 minutes ago, Tracy D'arth said:

Bio washing powder will break it down.

I use to use that when I had leaky cars, sprinkled on the black patch on the drive, rub it around with a scrub brush and leave to do its work until the next rain came.

[jonathanA]

I have found sawdust/wood shavings (we have pets so have this stuff in abundance) coupled with a wet/dry vac a good way to get the thick up, let the sawdust/shavings soak up the grimy mess then vac up and burn or bin.  you can then use soap powder/washing up liquid or a degreaser like 'Gunk' to remove the last bit and get everything squeaky clean (if your lucky) 

[pebble77]

Thank you so much everyone!

Fantastic advice.

I'll update later 😄

[Momac]

[David Mack]

2 hours ago, jonathanA said:

a degreaser like 'Gunk' to remove the last bit and get everything squeaky clean (if your lucky) 

I tried Gunk and its nowhere near as good as it used to be.

After using other methods to get rid of as much as possible, wiping over with Panel Wipe does the trick. You will need a copious supply of clean rages so you actually take the dirt and grease off rather than just spreading it around.

[Slim]

1 hour ago, David Mack said:

I tried Gunk and its nowhere near as good as it used to be.

After using other methods to get rid of as much as possible, wiping over with Panel Wipe does the trick. You will need a copious supply of clean rages so you actually take the dirt and grease off rather than just spreading it around.

Gunk? No way. Jizer or Hypa-Clean. As for Elbow Grease, total waste of time , tried it on the BBQ yesterday.

[ditchcrawler]

We went from Jizzer to Citraclean I dont know if this is the same as we used, ours was 205lt blue drums 

[blackrose]

13 hours ago, pebble77 said:

So scatter it around and then ...?

Do I add water?

 

As much as you probably want to avoid putting water back down there, if you have a wetvac and an AC supply it's very easy to get it out again. I recently bought one of these and it's brilliant.

 

https://www.screwfix.com/p/titan-ttb774vac-1300w-16ltr-wet-dry-vacuum-220-240v/826kh

 

[TandC]

plus 1 for using a wet vac.  Will save you loads of time. 

 

I use a good splash of this degreaser from Screwfix in flexible builders bucket, regular changes of the water, gradually get down to just plain water rinse.  Then vac it out - repeat.  

 

 

 

 https://www.screwfix.com/p/no-nonsense-degreaser-5ltr/897JL?kpid=897JL&cm_mmc=Google-_-Datafeed-_-Auto and Cleaning?kpid=KINASEKPID&cm_mmc=Google-_-TOKEN1-_-TOKEN2&ds_rl=1243318&ds_rl=1241687&ds_rl=1245250&gad_source=1&ds_rl=1247848&ds_rl=1245250&gclid=Cj0KCQjw1aOpBhCOARIsACXYv-eGcDlxiuXJ5Y1uKzSCoBIeQgzi8k6U6hXtZo-Q-9LTluo5uigrOFYaAip6EALw_wcB&gclsrc=aw.ds 

[truckcab79]

24 minutes ago, TandC said:

plus 1 for using a wet vac.  Will save you loads of time. 

 

I use a good splash of this degreaser from Screwfix in flexible builders bucket, regular changes of the water, gradually get down to just plain water rinse.  Then vac it out - repeat.  

 

 

 

 https://www.screwfix.com/p/no-nonsense-degreaser-5ltr/897JL?kpid=897JL&cm_mmc=Google-_-Datafeed-_-Auto and Cleaning?kpid=KINASEKPID&cm_mmc=Google-_-TOKEN1-_-TOKEN2&ds_rl=1243318&ds_rl=1241687&ds_rl=1245250&gad_source=1&ds_rl=1247848&ds_rl=1245250&gclid=Cj0KCQjw1aOpBhCOARIsACXYv-eGcDlxiuXJ5Y1uKzSCoBIeQgzi8k6U6hXtZo-Q-9LTluo5uigrOFYaAip6EALw_wcB&gclsrc=aw.ds 

 

Second this.   Wet vac for the bulk and then this degreaser.  That No Nonsense one is just about the best I’ve found and I use it for decreasing clients driveways when pressure washing. Very rare it doesn’t shift it even soaked into block paving.  Cheap enough to use neat if you need to.  

[billh]

18 hours ago, BEngo said:

 

 

As recommended by The Bergius Company.

I  bet washing soda is now not as strong as it was 90 years ago when that was written into the instruction book! There's a Company down the canal from here, East Lancashire Chemical Co, still make and export washing soda ( Elco brand, geddit?) all over the world, been doing that since  the early 1900's.

I've used WS  in an electrolytic cleaning tank  for, amongst other things, Kelvin engine parts, it works well.