I just did both, fore and aft heads on my boat. We did not take that panel off. We used a 90deg drill and a 1.5 inch Forster bit to ream out the copper we could not pull out. Then used a 2.5 inch hole saw in order to place a PVC barbed end on the outlet funnel. I wanted to get rid of the entire copper set up.  The inside of the tank also has a copper pipe that the up riser hose fits on to.  We yanked that entire mess out and replaced with a straight 1 inch pvc pipe that now let’s all the yuck out a couple of inches below the top of the tank. I could not figure out why Amel had designed the original up lift to just bend (inside the tank) from the inlet side and then have the outlet situated a few inches above the funnel outlet on the tank.  It seems that would cause a siphon if there was a plug up and greatly increase the risk of the entire tank emptying inside the boat. Amel always has a good reason for everything so I was reluctant to change it, but in the end I did and so far so good. 

The intake from the head to the tank, we stabilized the 1” pvc and then by hand stuffed thickened epoxy up the hole. Then made a device with a 1” pvc to stabilize a smaller tube inside of it in order to then dump epoxy around the pvc from the top inside the tank. 

We used the damage control plug to serve as the guide for the hole saw inside the outlet side of the tank. 

The curved hose on the dock was the inside the tank hose, it’s copper was bad as well, hence the 1” pvc replacement. 

Hope this helps. I’m sure my rambling is hard to follow.  

Bottom line I did not want to remove our panel, if you don’t have the appropriate drill I think it is worth it to buy it. 

CB

SM2K #430