• Hi Guest!
    You can help ensure that British Car Forum (BCF) continues to provide a great place to engage in the British car hobby! If you find BCF a beneficial community, please consider supporting our efforts with a subscription.
    There are some perks with a member upgrade!
    **Upgrade Now**
    (PS: Subscribers don't see this gawd-aweful banner
Tips
Tips

What is the best way to clean out the fuel tank?

Share this page

C

Coastalman

Jedi Warrior
Bronze
Country flag
Offline
I just took the gas tank off my newly acquired '59 Bug-Eye and after disposing of the 15 year old gas. I was thinking of taking the tank to a radiator shop to have them clean it out. I looked in the tank and saw the filter at the end of the pick up tube and wondered if that would be hurt in the cleaning process. What is the best way to clean the tank?
Charlie
 
Charlie,
This will sound like a joke, but many have done it and it works great.
Plug up the fuel line hole with some plastic clay and leave the fuel level sender in place. Completely fill the tank with water and dump it out a few times until you don't smell gasoline. Now fill the tank completely with hot tap water and set it on a well stoked BBQ (charcoal, not gas). By the time the coals are cold, the water will have boiled and done an amazing job. When you press the radiator shop on what they actually do, it turns out that most use hot water, not some magical solvent.
Do be sure to get out the gas and totally fill the tank with water so there is NO air to combine with any gas residue.
My neighbor looked over the fence and must have thought I was nuts, but when he saw me do the same thing to a starter ring gear before I dropped it on a flywheel from my home freezer, he was sure of it.

Glen Byrns
 
Hey Glen, what no nads? I boil my tanks on the gas grill all the time. 3/4 full of water, sender out so I can stick my nose in and watch the bubbles /bcforum/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/wink.gif
Yes I asked a radiator shop what they to when they boil a tank, they put water in it and a fire under it until it boils.
For some added help, put some large steel nuts in the tank to break any stuburn spots, use steel so you can get them out with a magnet. Rocks work too but getting that one out that got stuck....
 
Take it to the radiator shop & show them the little filter - its probably no good any longer anyway...they can remove it & can either reinstall it or toss it...if you have a good in-line filter, you don't need it anyway, IMHO.
 
I never thought of boiling a tank. That's a very interesting idea and I'll try it next time. To date, I've always removed the sender, covered the opening with a metal cover, then poured water washable/removable paint stripper in the tank and sloshed it around. After a few days of sloshing and waiting I've been able to rinse most of the varnish and such out. The charcoal grill idea sounds much more efficient and... interesting. I agree with Tony, don't worry about the in-tank screen. If it cleans up... great, if not, remove it and put a coarse inline filter before the pump.
 
<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:]they boil a tank, they put water in it and a fire under it until it boils[/QUOTE]
Mine puts tanks in a huge vat of hot water with some type chemical that cuts sludge from the inside & paint from the outside - first dip lasts 24 hours.

Steel balls work when the tank is shaken.
 
Or steel nuts if you don't have the steel balls.
 
Sportsdoc said:
What exactly are the steel nuts for??
Click to expand...

putting a gas tank on a charcoal grill and forgetting the water /bcforum/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/devilgrin.gif
 
how does this work, exactly? i thought Gasoline and water don't mix? How can hot water dissolve / remove varnish?

I don't want to contradict - I want to understand.....
 
I took my tank to the shop and had it rebuilt several yrs ago. After having done, I keep seeing new tanks priced for less than $200 and wish I had done that.
 
The steel nuts (rocks, etc.) are typically put in the tank as agitators. Shake the tank around and they'll scrub the inside of the tank. If you put things like that in a pot of boiling water they are "nucleation points" where the aggressive boiling starts.

Water is greatly under-rated as a solvent. When it's hot it can dissolve a lot more than you'd think. You're right, oil (gas) and water won't mix, but the steam and boiling water will help peel the gummy deposits off the walls of the tank. I would think the chemicals Tony was mentioning are mild caustics which will greatly improve the water's ability to lift the varnish off the inside of the tank.
 
If boiling water is too weird for you, then CLR bathroom cleaner works well but is very caustic. I've done both, but after the BBQ, I'm convinced of the power of water. My wife's Morris Traveler tank was an absolute mess, stalagtites of rust and varnish with tons of residue. The BBQ did the job for free. You can loosen big chunks and give the process a headstart by dumping all your extra nuts and bolts into the empty tank and shaking the $hit out of it for as long as your arms hold up, and then dump the crap out while the coals are getting ready.

Getting the filter back on the end of the pickup without cutting an access hole that will have to be welded shut afterwards is very difficult.

Glen Byrns
 
I never put that little filter back on - in-line filters are much better.

My radiator shop keeps 'em in the vat 24 hours at a minimum..with chemicals that not only clean the inside but also clean the outside, eating off all the old paint also.
 
Another dumb question in a long line from me. Gotta learn somehow, I guess.

When you're cleaning old gas out of the tank, rinsing the tank out, and pouring out the boiled tank water...how are you disposing of it? Does anyone know if oil recycling places will take old gas, too?

B
 
I gave the old useless gas to a neighbor who is also a farmer. He told me they always find ways to use stuff that burns. I think he mixed it into a big tank of tractor diesel fuel. Precise octane numbers are more of an issue with a 50K BMW than with a 30 year old tractor I guess. As for the varnish and rust chip filled "wash", mine went into the city sewage (NOT storm drain!). When you consider the variety of compounds that go into the average city sewage, (hair dyes, drain cleaners, detergents etc), a few gallons of rusty water with a hint of ethyl is actually pretty tame.

Glen
 
My local hardware store takes any type of household post-consumer chemical waste. The city also has collection kiosks at the city dumps, and organizes biannual 'hazardous waste' days at temporary sites. I'm sure most would have similar services.

The gas itself might be used to start that charcoal BBQ going though, if you're going that route! /bcforum/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/smile.gif
 
Back
Top