Gas tank removal

jvandyke

jvandyke

True Classic
I thought I read somewhere I need the car 2.5 feet off the ground in order to slide the gas tank out from under. Can't find it back. Right now I have 19" between the bottom of the tank and the ground. Not enough yet?
Then to drop tank,examine, clean, seal, reinstall. I wonder if shops do this for a fee? Might be worth it to have it done rather than do it oneself?

BTW just topped off tank yesterday and although it was running fine the pump was loud and the filter I put between the tank and pump was full of rust.
Now I am gravity draining the tank and it started out with a good flow, now down to a trickly and there should be at least 8 gallons or so still in there, so I'm guessing the sock is gummed up inside.
I'm thinking clean/seal and reach in and destroy the sock. Then forever use a filter between tank and pump.
This is an FI set up BTW.
 
18" minimum

From what I can find in the archives. The higher the better. At 18" you will probably have to do some creative tugging to get the tank out of its hole.

The most important thing is to be sure that car is secured Jeff. Don't go crawling under there and yanking on that tank without some type of redundant support.
 
One other thing

Yes. You can take it to a shop and get it refreshed. Here is the POR15 fuel tank products page so you can judge the trade off in price of doing it yourself after the shop gives you a quote.

http://www.por15.com/Fuel-System-Restoration/products/12/

Update: Yikes.. I am having a bad day posting.. fixed the POR15 link and noticed one of my responses isn't even here. Guess I didn't hit "Submit" :(
 
Last edited:
I managed with 18 inches under the car up on stands. It takes a little wiggiling but it can be done. The cost of having a shop do it is 5-6x the cost of the Por 15 kit. I figure DIY was worth it.
 
Okay thanks. I stopped raising and tried it with 23" and that was plenty. Glad I stopped trying for more height.
Tank out, dumped flushed and OH MY GOOD LORD, what a load of crap in there, huge junks of rust. I'll post pictures in a bit. This is the first one I've done, maybe they're all this bad but man is this unbelievable, the exterior of the tank looks fine (to me). Do they get to a point they're beyond saving? Are new ones viable?

What's the next step? Fill with rocks or nuts and bolts and shake it for a month? I'm going to try and shoot a picture of inside.

You know, reading through tank sealing info, if there's no leakage, why seal? Wouldn't a thorough clean and flush (with whatever chemical is appropriate) put it back to pretty darn good? I'd rather not have to destroy the internal filter and resort to an external one if possible, on the other hand, I only want to do this once and do it right.
 
JimD said:
The most important thing is to be sure that car is secured Jeff. Don't go crawling under there and yanking on that tank without some type of redundant support.
Click to expand...

I went back and forth raising front and rear, adding hunks of wood as spacers, using the spare with wood under the jack. Tedious but got the job down. It's on four floor jacks with stack of wood/ramps and such under the floor jacks. I'm confident it will stay put until I'm done, as long as nobody tries to push it over, because I'm sure you could if you really tried.
I'm going to take the opportunity to somehow patch the few rust spots on the floor pans. Not sure what I'll do there but now's the time. I wonder if it would also be a good idea to run a new speedo cable since it'll never be this high off the ground again. (at least not for a good long time..hopefully).
PS the fuel level sender was in two pieces, the plastic sweeper holder was off the stick, the wires look good, the float has something in it though, just a bit of gas I suspect. I'll check the float out and test the thing, it might be serviceable again too.
 
Matt usually has refurbished tanks available

jvandyke said:
What's the next step? Fill with rocks or nuts and bolts and shake it for a month? I'm going to try and shoot a picture of inside.

You know, reading through tank sealing info, if there's no leakage, why seal?
Click to expand...

I have read of folks using gravel and others toss in a length of chain. Probably anything that can roll/bang around in the tank to knock loose stuff of would be fine. Sealing the tank, even if it doesn't leak, also provides a protective coating that will never rust. IMHO that is the real goal of most of these treatments, rust prevention.
 
new ones, while sometimes become available, tend to be fairly rare. and expensive. I bought a used one some years ago and it looked very good on the outside, but actually was quite leaky. lotta lotta lotta rusty pin holes. I took it to a radiator shop and they patched it and coated the inside. it looks good inside and out now. and most importantly, it doesn't leak.

jim
 
Alright, I'm thinking POR 15 kit, and sealer and I should probably destroy the internal screen before I even start I guess (big rod up through the output?). Run a filter between tank and pump. If I do a good job, that filter should last a good long time anyway. Much longer than 60 miles the last one made it.
 
Brings back memories

I had to do this pulling the tank job on the side of the road using only the stock jack and river rocks. What a fun day that was.
 
We took a tank to the local radiator shop not too long ago, they get seriously rusted tanks all the time. Some are repairable, many are not.
Older cars with steel tanks are prone rust, which also depends on what gets into the tank other than gasoline.

This is one of the reasons why many new cars have plastic fuel tanks.

The radiator shop also mentioned the various gas tank sealers they have used over the years. No brand names were mentioned, but the service guy did say the early coatings would dissolve over time and made a HUGE mess. They are on coating version number three now which is an epoxy based coating that seems to work well enough..at least none of his customers have had problems so far.

If this tanks is seriously rusted, it might be better to consider a replacement as rust will cause the steel walls of the tank to thin and very likely develop into a hole resulting in a leak... or, needing to do work on or replace the tank again....

Even if the tank looks good on the outside, what counts is on the inside.. where it is not as simple to inspect.

Bernice

jvandyke said:
Tank out, dumped flushed and OH MY GOOD LORD, what a load of crap in there, huge junks of rust. I'll post pictures in a bit. This is the first one I've done, maybe they're all this bad but man is this unbelievable, the exterior of the tank looks fine (to me). Do they get to a point they're beyond saving? Are new ones viable?

What's the next step? Fill with rocks or nuts and bolts and shake it for a month? I'm going to try and shoot a picture of inside.

You know, reading through tank sealing info, if there's no leakage, why seal? Wouldn't a thorough clean and flush (with whatever chemical is appropriate) put it back to pretty darn good? I'd rather not have to destroy the internal filter and resort to an external one if possible, on the other hand, I only want to do this once and do it right.
Click to expand...
 
I ordered the Por15 short kit (Metal Ready and Sealer) since I didn't see the need to pay $30 for fuel stabilizer and a degreaser.
Por's "Marine Clean" appears to be Potassium Hydroxide and Ethylene Glycol Monobutyl Ether.
http://www.actiocms.com/VIEW_MSDS/AuthorDisplay_V401/msdsdisplaycode_author_new_MASTER.cfm?edit_msds_id=6966&dbname=actioauthor1_msds&language=1&Hide_Section_Numbers=N&CFID=4322801&CFTOKEN=42602d7429d19f9-3AF1593F-A692-2062-2B7C39EC6B447CCA&jsessionid=e030243bad7e343861002f75757c37601326#section3 or degreaser I believe.
I should be able to scrounge up something similar.
I've got some chains in there and sloshed around a little and it is cleaning up in there pretty good. Can't really see the area around the outlet too well but it looks like one big square of rust. I'm thinking about reaching in with a pipe/rod with some steel wool attached to the end to help. I'll do this for a while, slosh the chains around a while, flush it and hit it with some degreaser of some sort, then do the Metal Ready and Sealer.
 
Last edited:
Those are quite some flakes of rust!

Hope you get it all sealed nicely!

Not looking forward to this repair. Hopefully my tank won't need it as long as I have the car...
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top