What do you clean your bilge with???

Dish washing detergent: it's cheap and on hand. And biodegradable.

Depends how dirty it is. Mine was bad with oil sludge because of the Perkins 4108 leaking. First I scooped the sludge out, then put sawdust in to get the remainder out. Then a scrub with hot water and Tryclenium sugar soap ( much better than sellys ect. It's hands down better than anything else I've tried and being alkaline doesn't damage the wood. I had a bronze drain plug fitted to the garboard plank just above the keel so washing and flushing out is easier. Then I let it dry for a week or two and did other jobs. Lastly I got a scraper with a sharpener edge and scraped the surface, sanded etc primed with Noreglass 2 pack thin epoxy wood preserver and then a coat of their undercoat. I'm doing a major refit with a new engine etc so I used the opportunity to strip out the floor from the engine back re paint the interior.

Nowchem has a product called Crown X. Have used it to clean and prepare a 60 year old timber bilge. Thoroughly rinse with water then when dry timber is perfect for painting. May need a few goes if the bilge is really bad

Guitz that looks great, troubadour would you know what is in the crown x ? I've been working on making the bilges of the old work boat presentable scraping shoveling then gurnie & alkaline degreaser and wet vac I think shaggy put us onto the cheap ones from the big green shed awhile ago, thanks for the tip. It still goes on but getting closer to paint time, they have been done with what looks like bitumen, I see there's interior/ exterior wet seal available I'm thinking I will use it

I use Nowchem's Metal Gleam for the same job. Metal Gleam is an acid and I think Crown X is the alkaline version. My youngest son used to be the chemist at Nowra Chemicals that checked all this stuff. That was 10 years ago!

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woko said..
Guitz that looks great, troubadour would you know what is in the crown x ? I've been working on making the bilges of the old work boat presentable scraping shoveling then gurnie & alkaline degreaser and wet vac I think shaggy put us onto the cheap ones from the big green shed awhile ago, thanks for the tip. It still goes on but getting closer to paint time, they have been done with what looks like bitumen, I see there's interior/ exterior wet seal available I'm thinking I will use it

As Ramona said Crown X is an alkaline product. I found it very user friendly and effective. After rinsing and drying the timber was ready for paint and as far as I know it's still in good nick 23 years down the track

Bit of sludge under our Perkins 4236 I think we are the first to try and clean the old girls bilge!! I have been trying over the 8 years we have owned Soliloque. Very hard to get anywhere down near keel under engine beds. The first clean I did when we bought her was with tricleanium but since then I use dish liquid.