e32 diesel fil cover

Second attempt here to resolve the problem of a lost deisel deck fill cap. Mine is a 1987 E32 tall rig. attempting to fit a standard "replacement" cap, I discovered the threads were too coarse for the fill. My fill is a 16 per inch thread(same as the waste cap which is temporarily acting to cap the diesel). The water caps are the coarse thread and I assume Ericson used non matching caps to avoid inadvertent switching. Or maybe they got a special that year on fine threaded diesel fills. Who knows?!
Trying to avoid replacing the entire deck fill, I am making one last effort to locate an original.
My boat was built in California. Does anyone out there know how I can view original factory documents as to what equipment supplier might have provided that deck fill? Anybody out there maybe worked in their factory in 1986 and might have actually built my boat or adjacent hull # layups.
I think some company out there is still making and selling fine thread deck fills and caps for some esoteric purpose diesel deck fill. Possibly fills for generator tanks on commercial fishing vessels or off shore oil rigs? LOL. Has anyone out there ever discovered their Ericson diesel fill cap was fine thread. I'm the second owner and perhaps mine was a "one off" build. I've considered seeing if a machine shop can fabricate one.

Sometimes I cynically ponder the purchasing procedures at the builder. For instance my model, built in late '88, has deck fills with a cap with a recess for a winch handle stud. These *may* have been sourced from Hood or Giot, at that time. Simple concept, but in practice fitting in the handle against the toe rail was not always that easy.

When I replaced all of them I went with new SS ones with flip-up top pieces that allow you to rotate the cap. Works wonderfully, for a decade, and counting. These might have come from Scandvik, but Some research would be needed.

I can just picture the salesman taking the EY buyer out to a .... long.... lunch to sell him a gross of deck fills!

Loren Beach said:

Sometimes I cynically ponder the purchasing procedures at the builder. For instance my model, built in late '88, has deck fills with a cap with a recess for a winch handle stud. These *may* have been sourced from Hood or Giot, at that time. Simple concept, but in practice fitting in the handle against the toe rail was not always that easy.

When I replaced all of them I went with new SS ones with flip-up top pieces that allow you to rotate the cap. Works wonderfully, for a decade, and counting. These might have come from Scandvik, but Some research would be needed.

I can just picture the salesman taking the EY buyer out to a .... long.... lunch to sell him a gross of deck fills!

Click to expand...

Thanks for that! I am shelving the original replacement path in favor of one of the several good suggestions received including yours.
To everyone out there may we meet on beam reaches or quiet anchorages near the local tiki bar.

I went through much the same issue with my E38 years ago. Our club had its own pump out available for member use, for which most folks purchased their own screw in adapter for the pump out deck fitting. But of course the threads on my 1989 E38-200 deck fittings were (as you found out yourself) not really industry standard. In the end I figured in the easiest thing to do was just go ahead and replace the pump out deck fill with a "standard" fitting and be done with it. And the side benefit was that I now had a spare cap with the weird threads on hand available should I ever lose the diesel fill cover. I left the rest of the fittings in place, and to address Loren's comment about getting the winch handle to fit up against the toe rail, I sort of "solved" that by getting an inexpensive plastic winch handle and cutting it down to just the size I needed for the job.