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Clean the gas tank or buy a new one?

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tmc

tmc

Senior Member
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The gas tank in my TR3A project appears to be the original one. When I first removed it 7 years ago, I lightly sandblasted the exterior and painted it with Eastwood's rust encapsulator and then chassis black paint. It didn't leak at the time. I took the sending unit out (coated with a white layer of ?) today and looked inside the tank. As near as I can tell there is some surface rust, plus some residue on the bottom of the tank, but doesn't seem too bad to me. How does one clean the inside of a gas tank? Pancho whatzisface in California sells one for $300, but I hate to discard something usable. Thoughts?
 
Just went to pick up my 6 tank today as they said it was ready. They installed an additional bung and cleaned and pressure tested it. All was fine...
Except, I wanted it sealed too. So they are sending it back to have the inside and outside sealed.
 
No doubt others will say this is heresy; but what I did was just fill it up with fresh gas, make sure the screen was in good condition and keep an eye on the sediment bowl. SU carbs are really tolerant of small crud in the fuel; and between the sediment bowl and the screen, nothing big gets through.

That approach has worked for me (on various TR3s) for over 30 years now. The "project" TR3 actually has flaking paint inside the tank (I TOLD them to mask off the opening, but they didn't!) and it still hasn't caused a problem.
 
If it just has a bit of crud and surface rust, POR 15 works pretty well. I just did the tank in a buddies '66 Bronco. Cost about $85 or so. Since we are probably just about neighbors, I'd recommend Ed's for the kit:

Ed's Auto Paint & Supply
(970) 669-5714
401 E Eisenhower Blvd

It took a couple hours to do the coating. Not a real PITA, just alot of waiting. All I have to say is the stuff leaches into everywhere. Pretty good product.
 
Thanks for the info, frankenstang. I'll check out Ed's place. I've been doing some reading on internet sites; have decided to keep the tank and clean it one way or another. Seems to be several ways to do it and mine does not have much crud in it.
 
Just got mine boiled yesterday.Sat with gas in it for 30 years.some surface rust and crud inside.Haven't gotten it back yet but shop says its ready for paint.$70 bucks.For me it was worth getting it back completely stripped in one day as opposed to doing it myself and wondering if was clean enough.
 
Tanking your tank also strips off the surface galvanization causing the tank to rust even quicker in the future unless you reseal it somehow. I'll admit I've been lucky in the past. I've had good decent spare tanks for my Spits and Herald. I think Ford used pre-rusted metal to form Bronco fuel tanks. Just sayin'.
 
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