The
Creek Bank tank is equipped with some pretty cool hardware.
The latch on the main lid is a highly polished solid stainless
steel compression latch and found mostly on higher priced
boats. To open the lid, raise
the D ring to release the compression on the latch and rotate ¼ turn
and lift the lid. When you close the lid, be sure to press
the D ring flat in the latch housing. This will seat the
lid tight against the tank top plate. If the latch needs
to be tightened or loosened, you can adjust the height of
the locking lever using the two nuts on the threaded shaft
on the bottom of the latch.
You
will notice on edge of the lid there are steps cut into it
(pictured right). There are matching steps cut into the top
plate on the tank that the lid sits into. When the water
gets into these steps, the surface tension on the water creates
it's own seal by filling the gaps. Because water seeks the
path of least resistance, to escape from between the lid
and tank it has to go up, then sideways, then up again, then
sideways again, and finally up yet again. In rough situations
a slight amount of water will leak, but not very much.
Shown
to the left is the bottom of the 50 gallon tank lid. You
will notice that we've put a splash deflector on the underside
of the lid to help keep the water from sloshing back and
forth in the tank. The water level in our tanks is about
2" from
the top, which is to the bottom of the splash deflector.
If you have a large space between the top of the water and
the bottom of the lid, the water will slosh back and forth
and wreak havoc on your bait. By eliminating the air space
inside of the tank, it greatly reduces the amount of sloshing,
thus not beating your bait up. Because
of the smaller surface area of the 30 gallon tank, a splash
deflector
is not installed.
The
hinges are also solid stainless steel. They are heavy duty,
highly polished, and look great.
They will hold up to any abuse you can throw at them. The
design of these hinges allows either lid to be completely
removed in less than 5 seconds! To keep the lid in place
during normal operation, hinge locks have been installed
to keep the lid in place until you're ready to remove them.
The hinge locks are located beside the hinges on the left
side of the tank when facing the front of the tank. To remove
either the main tank lid or the filter box lid, simply slide
the hinge lock away from the lid, open the lid straight up
and slide the lid towards the hinge lock until it comes off
the pins.
To
replace the lid, hold it straight up and slide the hinges
of the lid onto the pins on the tank. Close the lid and slide
the hinge locks back into place.
If
the hinge locks become too easy to slide back and forth,
there is a screw that can be tightened underneath the lock.
Keep the locks tight so they don’t vibrate to the unlocked
position. REMEMBER to keep your hinge locks in place when
hauling your boat down the road. 
The
hardware that we use on these tanks is easy to
use, functional, and great looking.
