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Hard Tank Plugs


Ronnie

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Last year I had a leak from one of my rear hard tanks. The soft black plastic nipple that Malibu installs on the tanks had collapsed inside the hose. As I was trying to pull the hose off the nipple I actually pulled the threaded nipple right out of the threads. I replaced them with the hard white plastic ones and haven't had any problems.

Yesterday while filling the tanks I noticed there was a lot of water in the rear compartment as the tanks filled and the water started coming out the overflow dumps. When we got back to the lift I drug out all the items from the rear storage lockers and filled them again. The water was coming from the rear of the tanks. FAST!! I felt around the back of the tanks and there are three plugged inlets on the tanks just like on the front end. This makes the tanks fit either side of the storage areas. On one of the plugs at the top the cap fell off in my hand leaving the threaded part in the tank. Mad.gif I checked the other plug at the top by twisting it with my hand and it snapped off too! Leaving the threaded part inside as well. Mad.gifMad.gif I couldn't reach the bottom plug so I removed the screws holding the tank to the floor and the bottom plug was good. I was able to unscrew the threaded remains from the tanks by inserting a roofing knife into the broken fitting and working it out. All three plugs were the soft black fittings and were sealed with silicon. They were screwed in so far at the factory that they bottomed out on the plug's hex head and eventually broke off. I replaced all three of them with the harder white plugs and put about five wraps of teflon tape on them so they wouldn't bottom out. I decided I would check the other side and one of the plugs on that side snapped off too with just hand pressure!! Mad.gifMad.gifMad.gif Needless to say, I replaced those three as well.

This boat has NEVER been in freezing temps. It's been stored in a heated shop during the winter and hangs in the lift now that it has warmed up.

Long story here, check your tank plugs every now and then.

BTW...This was one of the first '04 23 LSVs built so Malibu may have changed the fittings by now.

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Funny that you brought this up.

Yesterday I was working on my VLX. I'm leaving the hard tanks in and adding bags to supplement the wake (a gravity games bag on each side plus a 540 to put in the bow or back seat). As I was removing the drain pump from the hard tank, I busted the top vent hose connection just like you described. Mad.gif The threads on the nipple broke inside the threads on the tank. I don't know what those black nipples are made of, but it didn't take much to snap them off. After hearing about your experience, I'm replacing all of mine during this project.

I was also surprised to find that they used silicone on the threads and not teflon tape. I'm changing that too.

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Hey Ronnie when I removed my tanks I noticed that they had been leaking too. Before we did the sac replacement I plugged all the rear holes with a rubber expandable plug

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One of the reasons I finally pulled the trigger on changing from hard tanks to sacs was because those black fittings were breaking and leaking.

I saw how ez it was to take the tanks out - cuz I had to do it each weekend to fix a leak.

So I finally took them out for good thanks to the advice from themalibucrew.

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  • 1 month later...

I had this exact issue come up this weekend on my 2005. Can anyone tell me what the dimensions are on that fitting? Is it a 3/4" barb X 5/8" threaded? The dealer will send me one, but it will be the exact same fitting that just broke.

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Home depot has them in the PVC section, near the sprinklers. They are 3/4 inch and grey, they have the plugs for the back there also. When I replaced some on a VLX we had to replace the hose b/c the old hose was splitting when we tried to reconnect it. so check the hoses before you head to the store. We used the clear braided hose B/c it would not age as much as the black hose.

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Oh man, are u guys telling me I got more things to fix.......I just want to ride! Not fix things.

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Just this week I discovered that my locker tank drain pump was leaking. The 90* fitting that joined pump to tank was not even finger tight.

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