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Sludge in the bilge

HerbertFriedman

Member III
I have what seems like an inordinate amount of thick oily black sludge in the bilge of my '87E34. The interior is totally dry after a rain but rainwater seeps into the bilge from the openings in the mast. I see a lot of sludge in the bilge water even after pumping it dry and cleaning up the several bilge areas with a towel. The engine is the logical culprit but I am not losing oil and the areas underneath the engine are quite clean. Could the sludge be coming from inaccessible areas under the triaxial grid? Any other ideas?
 

toddster

Curator of Broken Parts
Blogs Author
My bilge was quite nasty. Part of it was that the pan under the engine had no access except a 1/4" limber hole, so there was decades of accumulation of grime under there that constantly mixed into the main bilge. I opened it up, cleaned it out (yuck!) and put an absorbent "diaper" under the engine. Sources of drips or leaks can quickly be spotted by examining the diaper. Turns out that the engine isn't really incontinent, but stuff had just accumulated for ages.
Another source of oily junk that can mix with dust to form bilge matter is the galley icebox drain. (Spilled food, milk, etc.) And yes, sometimes smelly water accumulates in hidden bilge areas (pre-TAFG boat) and dumps into the main bilge on the next spirited sail. I am hoping that if I open up the sole and install a grating to ventilate and dry that last inaccessible bilge, it will clear things up. (According to plan, it will become the new shower sump.)
 

Christian Williams

E381 - Los Angeles
Senior Moderator
Blogs Author
I have similar issue from time to time. Absorbent pad under engine block shows no leaks after many hours of running. Engine is clean.

Yet sludge appears and keeps appearing. I conclude, yeah, it is ancient stuff from the TAGF. Any historical oil or fuel spill lives on there. A tiny bit of old oil will give a sheen and an oil taste.

I am also convinced that water, seawater especially, that gets trapped in the TAGF, grows organisms, and that they're much of the dark sludge. It's the same stuff that grows in salt water toilet lines, black and stringy.
 

Frank Langer

1984 Ericson 30+, Nanaimo, BC
My always dry bilge began to show oily stuff, which I eventually traced to pin hole leaks in the aluminum fuel tank. I replaced that--one of the biggest jobs I've had to tackle--and that solved the oily problem.
Frank
 

herff

New Member
Belt dust combined with exhaust soot could be the culprit. I had an exhaust leak after the lift muffler in my ‘73 E27 and damned if it didn’t just leak oily sludge.
 
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