After sitting for at least 7 years, my 86's fuel tank was filled with rust flakes and unusable. Last weekend, I went to a junk yard and pulled a used tank. There is only very minor rust on the inside, but overall, a pretty good tank. However, there is some sediment in the bottom. Any recommendations on how to best clean out the junk so I don't have to constantly swap out my fuel filter?

 

what I did is I cut my fuel tank in half horizontally just above the original seem, then i used a wirewheel on a drill to clean up everything after that I coated the inside of the tank with 2 stroke engine oil then welded it back together. the 2 stroke oil was just for while the tank was sitting there with no gas in it. as long as theres always gas in it, it will never rust again. Any small welder will do the job. I used a 90amp mig welder at the minimum setting.

There are some cleaners out there made to clean out fuel tanks and stuff... they kinda work, but this way you get to see everything in your tank and clean up everything back down to bare metal. I even did a few mods in there to help the fuel from sloshing around in turns and cleaned up the fuel pump bowl by removing it cleaning it and re-welding it back into place.


Hope this helps!

 

While I'm sure that is a good option for a full restore, I'm just looking for a way to get the sediment out of the bottom. I know some auto parts stores carry fuel tank reliner chemicals. I haven't heard of any for cleaning out the silt though.

 

theres a product called evaporust and its made to clean out the rust out of fuel tanks and it would work for what you want. I dont know where you can buy it in the States...I live in Canada. Also you could use CLR thats a famous one and works really well. Another thing people do is they pour about a 2L bottle full of little rocks in the gas tank then shake it around for some time and then empty it and clean it after. this will loosen any rust and debris from the tank before cleaning it!

theres also a product called oxiclean and it works well because it is corrosif...

good luck!

 

Head over to the build thread section and check out "Naomi: can't keep a good bitch down". That user just did exactly what you are wanting to do I think.

 

Thanks for pointing out that thread. I'll have to stop by my local Harbor Freight after work and see if they carry evaporust.

 

No problem. Good luck.

 

Linked.

"Naomi: Can't keep a good bitch down" -- Cleaning an FC fuel tank with evapo-rust

 

POR15 is very popular with folks on the board. You might want to follow up your rust removal with the POR15 fuel tank repair kit.

 

I considered it, but I decided against it because:

1) its a mess
2) its difficult to get an even coat on all the inner surfaces of the tank
3) I didn't want ANYTHING to potentially compromise my fuel system again
4) I figured if it took 20+ years to get to that state I'd probably have a fuel cell before I needed to clean it out again.

 

i know this is a old thread but sharigan how is the fuel tank holding up cause i to have tried the acid flush and it started to rust up again. im going to head to work soon and I can pick up some evaporust while I'm there. (i work at advance autoparts)

 

Bump

 

I took mine out, drained it, filled it with a bunch of bolts/nuts and rubbing alcohol (evaporates easily), shook it as much as I could without hurting myself, drained it and let it air out. It's not exactly what I would call a perfect restoration, but it knocked out the vast majority of the rust. As someone said, it took 25+ years for the rust to get as bad as it did so I figured this would be good enough.