2021 Yamaha 255 FSH Sport - Fuel Tank Leakage Issue

[Hookedup]

Own a 2021 Yamaha 255 FSH Sport:

A) While disappointed with the live well, hinges separating and the lids no longer close securely, within year 1
B) Biggest disappointment has been with the Fuel Tank leakage caused from cheap hatch that caused salt water to intrude into fuel tank and rusted the bolts on top of fuel pump seal which occurred in early 2024.

Yamaha was clueless and no help, their response was to cut out my entire boat deck, remove and replace the fuel tank e.g. (my pinky hurts, cut off your hand and we will replace it with a new robotic one).

I have had to deal with the issue on my own as I don't trust Yamaha.

Again, the boat runs great and have no issues with the engines but they have gone so cheap on the little things, it has caused bigger problems.

Just wanting to inform so other potential Yamaya buyers are aware.

 

[MilesPrower]

I boat in saltwater and store my boat on a lift above the water.

Once a year, I open up everything and spray SaltAway into/onto all metal parts and follow up the next day with Yamashield. That includes the airspace and metal bracing above the tank.

After every outing, I open up the hatch between the cleanout ports and spray water onto all of the hose clamps. About 4 or 5 times I year, I open the deck hatch that's between the helm seat and fire-suppression port, and I rinse the tank fittings under there. I spray Yamashield onto everything metal once a year.

Knock on wood HDPE, I haven't seen any corrosion to worry me.

But yeah, my "pandemic boat" (also a 2021 FSH Sport E) was built by technicians meth addicts who were hired after all the technicians left during lockdown, so pretty much every small fastener was stripped, and many of the big fasteners were never tightened.

If you haven't already, check underneath your center console and look at the big, horizontal allen bolts that are in the below-deck fittings for the hardtop stanchions. (Remove the HDPE sheets in the helm locker that are directly under the electronics, so you have visual access). I bet those big bolts were never tightened down. Mine were dozens of turns out.

For example, you can see in @Zackdadams photo that one of his allen bolts is loose. It's the left-most bolt, in the upper-left corner:

https://jetboaters.net/attachments/20220318_173446-jpg.183843/

If you find any loose allen bolts, remove them (one at a time) and coat their threads with anti-seize before tightening them down.

That's another thing the Yamaha meth addicts never did — put anti-seize on any of the metal-to-metal fasteners to prevent galling.

Also, none of the holes drilled into gelcoat were properly countersunk for the thread diameter of the fastener, so wherever there's a surface-mount (e.g., panhead) fastener into gelcoat, the gelcoat is cracked.

All those little things add up to a boat that needs way more re-rigging and maintenance than it should.

A year after buying the boat, I thought about authoring a thread describing every crucial fix or mod I made... but then I realized I'd be spending many days typing up posts... so I gave up on the idea.