Classic cars forum & vehicle restoration.

[ianm]

G'day all, any ideas of how I can clean out a fuel tank of a Series 3 Hillman Estate.
It last had fuel in it 23 years ago so I would think there would be some rust and left over resins from the old fuel.
I was thinking may be steam cleaning or beed blasting
Ian

[buzzy bee]

Hi

Some times if you have a slightly rusty tank, it can pay to pop a magnet in the tank, and leave it there, then the rust flakes will be attracted to the magnet, not done it in a car, but seen it done in engines!

Cheers

Dave

[Uncle Joe]

Why not take it to a company that repairs and rebuids car radiators and get them to clean and seal it?

[Mog]

I had a petrol tank repaired once. They boiled it up in a tank of water,with detergent, for a few hours , before doing the repair. The tank was electrically heated.

[Uncle Joe]

Purely as a point of interest, one of the major car manufacturers did have a recommended standard for cleaning and repairing petrol tanks.

[michael1912]

Hi - I cleaned mine out by shaking with water and small pebbles in it, followed by with "Marine Clean" from Frosts. Seemed to work OK. No carb blockages since.

[Uncle Joe]

I was talking to a former garage owner today who told me that this was a common problem here 60 years ago...he explained how he used to clean tanks back then, then lamented that the chemicals are no longer available. His next comment was a killer. How can I be expected to do a good job, if I cant get the proper stuff to do it with?...

[Mog]

Good petrol tanks were made , in the old days, out of tern plated ? steel. It was a high lead/tin plate which stopped the rust.

[Uncle Joe]

There was a definate decline in quality during and after WW2 due to material shortages. Bit sad really that things never got back to how they were quality wise.