# Fuel Tank Cleaning and Repair



## transient.labor (Jan 11, 2007)

So, I finally got around to finishing up my fuel tank cleaning and repair project. The fuel tank on my Dasher contained a lot of gunk and rust, plus the strainer was really clogged. The pictures below will help illustrate the step-by-step process for anyone else interested in the project. The pictures only show the strainer mounting area because any other angle was impossible to obtain.
I started with a rusty, gunky fuel tank and a kit from Por-15 for cleaning and sealing fuel tanks.
The kit was purchase from a local auto restoration shop and included complete instructions and spray bottles.























Removal of the strainer was pretty easy; I just used a piece of stiff wire with a hook bent on the end. I placed the strainer and filler cap in a 1:1 solution of the Marine Clean and warm water and let it soak overnight.
Before:








After:








For the tank I mixed up a 1:5 solution of Marine Clean to warm water. This is more dilute than the instructions call for, but I only bought a gallon of the solvent and wanted to maximize its use. This solution worked well, but took more than 24 hours to completely work.
After Marine Clean (the blue liquid is the Metal-Ready):








The Metal-Ready is not diluted and I left it in the tank for a few hours, frequently agitating and propping the tank in different positions.
After Metal-Ready:








After this step there was still some areas of rust specifically in the pickup sump (not really visible in the picture), so I hit the tank with a 15% solution of HCl (muriatic acid) for a few hours to thoroughly dissolve any remaining rust. I had been a little hesitant to use HCl because it could dissolve significant amounts of good steel, but I had some for free and wanted to get rid of all the rust. After the HCl rinse I poured the filtered Metal-Ready back into the tank and again tried to let it work on every area. The Metal-Ready contains a rust inhibitor, zinc phosphate, so I wanted to coat the inside of the tank before drying and try to prevent as much rusting as possible. 
The tank looked pretty good after cleaning with with the Marine Clean and I was considering just getting rid of as much rust as possible with the Metal-Ready and putting the tank back in service. The sealing part of this process seemed tedious and possibly not worth the money or effort. However, during the acid baths I discovered a small pinhole in the tank sump area. This discovery pretty much dictated my decisions.
Pinhole:








*The tank was rinsed thoroughly after every step.*
The inside of the tank is now bare metal and will rust slightly during the 1-2 hr. drying phase. This is ok because the tank sealer works over light surface rust.
Before coating with sealer:








After sealer: 








Everything seems to have turned out well. I won't really know how good of a job I did until I fill the tank with fuel or water as a test.
Suggestions or things I would do differently next time:
I had a bit of trouble draining the tank of fuel, water, and all the solutions I used. After the process was over I wondered if I should have drilled the sump area and installed a plug of some sort. This would facilitate easy draining of any liquid that is in the tank. 
I used a pint of sealer on the tank and this was much more than is needed. I had to tediously "drain" quite a bit of the leftover sealer so that it did not puddle in the tank. However, I don't know if an 8oz. can would be enough to coat the entire tank. Just don't pour in the entire pint at first and add more sealer as needed.
My draining tool:








If your tank contains significant rust try using a solution of hydrochloric or phosphoric acid in between the Marine Clean and Metal-Ready. This will remove most if not all of the rust and allow the Metal-Ready to work more quickly. 
If you do not want to drill a drain hole in your tank, try using a disposable plastic pipette to remove the excess tank sealer. This pipette can also be used to place tank sealer in the filler tube.


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## A2kameiX1 (Feb 28, 2007)

*Re: Fuel Tank Cleaning and Repair (transient.labor)*

good job man http://****************.com/smile/emthup.gif


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