Contaminated tank??

[romcke]

I made the mistake of leaving my tank close to empty without the benefit of fuel stabilizer. I am in the process of rebuilding the carb, however I do not know the procedure for cleaning the tank. I can see rust looking sediment on the bottom of my aluminum tank but the fuel looks clear, however when I use the fuel pump to fill an empty clean bottle I see sediment resembling tiny sand particles both in the clear filter housing and in the bottle.

[BigBone]

How old is the boat and how large the tank?

At some point, I'd expect the bottom of any tank to show some debris. If there isn't too much fuel in the tank, you could suck it out and run it through a lawn mower or something that would not be adversely affected by poor quality fuel--maybe the Jag.

[marinerman]

Here's a thought. Put about 5 gallons of gas in the tank. Buy an inexpensive automotive type electric fuel pump, some fuel hose and a fuel filter. Hook the inlet of the pump up to your tank outlet, with the fuel hose on the pump outlet running back to your tank. Run the pump as long as you feel necessary to pump all of the fuel through the pump/filter setup several times. This should capture most, if not all, of whatever particulates are in your tank. The Racor that you have installed will catch the rest.

Someone will probably be along shortly to say you are going to blow yourself up. So much for the naysayers.

[Bullshipper]

Tank cleanouts are a common problem that has not been addressed properly by OEM's.
I would really like to see a hatch and a top tank opening that was hand size so that you could fork in a long bottlebrush to clean and see the results of the cleanout through a designated drain for boates that have trouble getting clean fuel in remote locations. To jerry rig this:

I added a tee above my spring check valve with a 3/8" hose (with an end plug) that was long enough to snake out of the bilge drain hole. This will drain the gas and reside out of the tank with the boat on a trailer into a 5 gallon bucket with a fine mesh cloth on top to catch the crud, and let you know if more was coming out after 2 cleaning cycles with the same filtered gas, or with 3 new gallons if I saw water in the old.
I would also back flush bubble the tank through the same hose for a while (slowly!) with an air compressor and have my son jack the trailer up and down while my beer buddy was on the deck rocking her from side to side. Looked liked a clowns act, but I always got a tablespoon of crud per season using Mexican gas-. Then changed my Racor after the first hour to make sure the system was clean.
Just keep smokers away from the boat while doing this as the explosive gas vapors are excessive with the air on.