Technical slosh or not to slosh

I take care of a car collection for https://www.chevsofthe40s.com/ and ran across this yesterday. This '56 Lincoln was restored about 10 years ago. The owner insists on "sloshing" the gas tanks in his cars which is a sealer. Very tough plastic like stuff. I'm not liking it right now.

Car was starving for gas at highway speeds, would die but restart after a few minutes. This car never gets alcohol blended gas, just unleaded premium.

The pickup tube in the tank is similar in design to an oil pump with a screened housing that sits a 1/4 inch off the tank floor. When I pulled the tank and looked in the sending unit hole, I could see a bubble in the sealer about 8 inches in diameter. It was centered on the pickup tube and was "sucking up" to block the inlet.

I find this out the day before the car is supposed to be in the Portland Rose Festival parade so worked real late getting it running again. I made a "rake" and a "brush" out of some #6 electrical wire and got as much sealer out as I could. It came out in small sheets as it would tear away. Shown here on top of the tank.



Then I put a couple handfuls of washed 3/4" crushed rock in it and a couple gallons of water then agitated. Rinse and repeat, shake out the gravel, then rinse. A good tip for drying the tank is hook your shop-vac to the filler neck with the sending unit removed. Sucks it dry in a few minutes.

**EDIT**
ONLY USE A SHOP-VAC AFTER SEVERAL RINSES WITH WATER
Don't blow yourself up sucking gas fumes !!!

So I just got a text from the owner thanking me for his trouble-free day.
I was afraid it was going to be a bring-the-trailer text.

 

If a tank is in good condition, I would not put that crap in it...if the tank is in bad condition, I'd rather find a good one, than put that crap in it.

 

The prep for sealer may not have been done properly. Beautiful car.

 

If you properly prep for the sealer, you are probably 90% of the way to bare metal. Why not go all the way and not need the sealer at all?

 

More often than not, that shit will come back to bite you at a later date.

 

Sealer is always trouble.People would put that stuff in cheap new repop motorcycle gas tanks instead of simply leak testing the tank and repairing it if needed.It always came back to bite them.

 

Not a good idea to draw thru a fuel tank into a shop-vac.
If fumes are still present, and they can be, the electric motor of the shop-vac can make things go BOOM!

Now...you might be super careful with the rinsing and not be in any danger what so ever...but it's a bit of a scary thing to recommend to other people, when you have no control over just what they might do!
Some people would try to dry out the raw fuel itself.....

 

I used Kreme once.
Used the acid prep etc too...just like the instructions say.
The Kreme didn't adhere for long and made such a mess I ended up tossing the tank and going a different route. Total waste of time...and I'll never use any of it again.
Once bitten, twice shy.

 

had the same thing with a 1940 Ford pick up I was working on. inside the tank was a bunch of sheets of that stuff that had come off, we just bought a new one. it was some sort of silver stuff. what a mess.

 

Used the bill hirsch gas tank sealer on an antique tractor. Worked for a few years, then pieces started coming loose and I'd see little white plastic shards in my glass fuel sediment bowl

 

I never had any good luck with that Kreme stuff. I have had great luck with a product called Red Kote. I have used it in several bike tanks and in my 1910 Overland tank. I would recommend it to anybody.

 

X2. Used Red Kote in my Lincoln tank as well as my 1955 IH farm tractor tank. Kreme will fail if some solvents or alcohols touch it. There are several tank sealers that work and don't fail easily, you just have to do your research. And even those that work can be screwed up by improper cleaning or application.

 

Thanks for the heads-up. Edited original post.
I forget there are complete idiots that can read.