dirty gas tank
- Thread starter cvicky
- Start date
All of the above tips are excellent. Once you have taken the acetone out, if you find out it still has goo in it, this is what I did with the gas tank from my 54. Sorry if its a bit long, but this really worked well.
My 54 was parked in 1966 and I cleaned the tank with this process about two years ago. It had a lot of brown dried up stuff in it. None of it stuck to a magnet so I knew it was old dried up gas. Was probably parked with a full tank, and when I got it, it was a real mess inside.
Vacuumed out as much loose stuff as I could. Put in a half cup of LYE and filled the tank with water. I wore gloves, and safety goggles as this mix can eat your skin. Keep a garden hose handy and rinse off anything you don't want the lye/water mix on. Do all of this outside. I let it sit overnight the first time. Could swear I could hear it boiling inside. I did not apply any heat.
I dumped it out, it was very brown and I did this two more times. The third time the water/lye came out very clear. Rinse the tank out with the garden hose a fair bit. You could fill it and drain it a couple times. After drying it out in the sun for a few hours, I vacuumed it out AGAIN, blew compressed air in there and then rinsed it with a little gas, then dumped it out. For the next year (about a dozen tanks of fuel) I used a big fuel filter (Hastings GF115) before my fuel pump. This filter is actually for fuel injected Fords and has a much finer material than a carb filter.
Last summer I removed the big filter and just used the factory sediment filter on the fuel pump. It took a full year of use (probably 4000 miles) before that filter needed to be serviced a few weeks ago.
Hope this helps you and anyone else with a dirty fuel tank. The local rad shop won't clean fuel tanks anymore so I had to do this. Very happy with the results.
My 54 was parked in 1966 and I cleaned the tank with this process about two years ago. It had a lot of brown dried up stuff in it. None of it stuck to a magnet so I knew it was old dried up gas. Was probably parked with a full tank, and when I got it, it was a real mess inside.
Vacuumed out as much loose stuff as I could. Put in a half cup of LYE and filled the tank with water. I wore gloves, and safety goggles as this mix can eat your skin. Keep a garden hose handy and rinse off anything you don't want the lye/water mix on. Do all of this outside. I let it sit overnight the first time. Could swear I could hear it boiling inside. I did not apply any heat.
I dumped it out, it was very brown and I did this two more times. The third time the water/lye came out very clear. Rinse the tank out with the garden hose a fair bit. You could fill it and drain it a couple times. After drying it out in the sun for a few hours, I vacuumed it out AGAIN, blew compressed air in there and then rinsed it with a little gas, then dumped it out. For the next year (about a dozen tanks of fuel) I used a big fuel filter (Hastings GF115) before my fuel pump. This filter is actually for fuel injected Fords and has a much finer material than a carb filter.
Last summer I removed the big filter and just used the factory sediment filter on the fuel pump. It took a full year of use (probably 4000 miles) before that filter needed to be serviced a few weeks ago.
Hope this helps you and anyone else with a dirty fuel tank. The local rad shop won't clean fuel tanks anymore so I had to do this. Very happy with the results.
Last edited:
rotorwrench
Well-known member
I used to use Drano crystals but they don't make them any more. I had to switch to Black Swan Power Crystals to get the job done. This is basically lie so it will burn you if too much skin contact is made but it cleans everything out except the corrosion.