Reawakening a old Chevy pickup. Gas has been in at tank(s) at least 5 years. Want to get whatever goo is in the tanks out before attempting to start motor. What process and/or products work best without removing the tanks??
Best thing to do is drain it,and have a radiator shop boil it out.If you have rust you can try putting a double handful of nut,or short bolts in,and turn the tank end for end over,and over to break it up.Its extra work,but then nothings easy once a vehicle has been allowed to sit to long.
How bad is it ? 5 years isn’t that long. I would put a filter at outlet of tank if possible and see what happens. If really bad, full of flaking rust, it would be best to pull the tank.
^^^^^^^^^^^ just like above post, 5 years is not long at all. If any thing flush with fresh gas or diesel and change fuel filter. If really bad pull it and have a rad shop boil it.
If you can find a radiator shop, and, a radiator shop that still boils out radiators. I talked to Stoners in Waterloo for example and he said they don't do that anymore. California? Hm. Look carefully over the tank for pinholes and judge the overall condition. It may not be worth the effort compared with a new tank.
I think tanks are cheap enough that trying to clean one up costs more than replacing, even if you only put a couple of bucks an hour on what your time is worth. If you consider all the issues dirty fuel can cause, it's just not worth messing with unless the tank is rare and not repopped. Tanks Inc has quite a few reasonably priced tanks, except for my 50 Sedan Delivery . I can lose the spare tire well and save $150 but I like that spare tire well! Classic Car Auto Parts is the cheapest that I've found. $329 for the tank I need. 50 Chevy car tank is $199 from Tanks Inc. But they dont have the Sedan Delivery tank.
I’ve never had luck cleaning and old tank. There’s a company up here called Gastank renu that cleans and seals your tank for under $200 bucks. used them a few times for weird stuff that new tank is not available. anyways I’ve heard of nuts n bolts or lengths of chain dropped in the tank with muriatic acid or clr and shimmy and dance that tank around the yard for an hour or 2, drain , rinse, repeat.
I spent hours of my teenage years and 20s swishing around gas tanks with nut bolts rocks and kerosene. Shaking them back and forth and pouring the shit out. Id smell like varnished gas for a week. 5 years? That tank is fine unless it was put away with a half sludged tank 5 years ago. Your real problems will possibly be how messed up your carb and fuel pump are from sitting with modern gas in them but they might be fine too. Dont over think it. Put an inline filter in and run it.
Maybe I'm missing something here but why not clean the tank with acid, flush well and use a tank sealer. POR 15 has a complete kit to do just that. When I sealed my tank everything went well, I even coated the filler neck with good results. Best of luck, Ralph...
I have sold gas tank sealer for the last 30 years with success. 1st rule only seal the tank when it's absolutely necessary.If you can get a new tank and it's affordable by a new tank Never use muriatic acid to clean the tank. Muriatic acid keeps on working resulting in the coating coming loose down the road. If it's pin holed out coat the outside 1st then slosh the inside. Turn the tank on and let it completely drain. puddling will cause mud cracking. You want a nice thin even coat. The success rate is pretty high If you do it right if it wasn't I would not get involved with it.Good luck
I've cleaned several tanks, and they work fine. I've also had a few that could not really be cleaned well (or were missing), and replacing was the best option. To clean the ok tanks, I first drain, then flush with gasoline, then spray some carb cleaner inside, then flush again. Then drive it with a good inline filter (such as Wix 33032, 33033, etc) and change the filter after it gets full of crap, or after I've run a full tank of gas through it. Also when searching for replacement tanks, if it's a car that doesn't really need to be "perfect", but just needs to get on the road again, try looking for tanks for other common cars, that might fit in the hole. For example, I found that a 60s Chevelle tank would fit a 59 Edsel with only a little bit of work on the filler neck. Rockauto.com has a lot of listings, with pictures, and dimensions on many of them.
I'd flush that one out. Maybe run some thinner or solvent through it and go. If rusty the chain/ nuts/bolts thing works well. Im always paranoid though. I count how many things I put into a tank to ensure they all come out. Muriatic acid and a foot of chain and some shaking. followed by a very through rinse with water cleans surface rust right off. Im not opposed to doing an hour or 2 clean on an old tank. Most of the time they arent that bad.
Not sure how Old a Chevy truck your talking about but this is right off the Tanks sight. Only $195.00 TM55A Description: 1949-54 Chevy / GMC Pickup Gas Tank Quantity: How much work do you want to do to save $200.oo? This is a pretty average price for most of what they have.
The first tank I put on the Studebaker looked OK but had a leak up near the seam where a reinforcement tab (installed by the good folks at Studebaker) had evidently rusted between the patch and the tank I had another tank that was pretty badly varnished, I called a place in Omaha (Bob's Radiator) and they are going to boil it and seal the inside ($160-$180 baring any other issues), a new tank is over $400, guess life is a gamble but at least some places still do "old style" repairs.
Stop by Lowe's, buy 2 gallons of ketone. Drain the tank and pour in the ketone. Agitate (that's what my wife says i do all if the time) let sit 24 hours, drain, rinse with some fresh gas, let it dry, then use it. It'll clean sludge, but not rust.
I bought and restored a 50 sedan delivery about 10 years ago that had been sitting since 1965 according to the rusty license plate that was on it. It must have been parked full of gas. I pulled the 1/8” pipe plug out of the bottom of the tank and nothing ran out. Left it and was working on other parts of the car and about 30 minutes later noticed a puddle of black goo under the tank with a black string of the same goo stretching all the way up to the drain. I collected some of the molasses looking stuff and started looking for something that would desolve it. Only think I found that would was MEK which is just about the nastiest stuff on the planet. Poured a gallon of it in the tank along with a couple handfuls of 1/2” to 3/4” nuts and bolts to help agitate it and put it in the back of my pickup. Drove around a week or so with it back there and when I poured it out the tank was perfectly clean inside. I’ve been driving the car for 10 years now and have never gotten any trash in the filter.
I've cleaned several tanks using phosphoric acid. The last one I did I used Aluma Brite aluminum cleaner which contains phosphoric acid (it's what I had on hand). I filled the tank with water and about a quart of the Aluma Brite and let it sit for a few days. The tank came clean, with no rust or goo. After cleaning and rinsing I sloshed around a couple cups of MMO in it to stop flash rusting and it's good to go.
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