Fuel Tank Repair

[swampdigger]

Any suggestions? My rear tank is heavily pitted with rust on the bottom... I plugged a lot of the holes with epoxy, sanded it, painted it... but it started leaking again.

Would a layer of fibgerglass along the bottom take care of my issues?

Haha, no new tanks for this broke *******. Don't even suggest it!

 

[h2odrx]

there is dome stuff you can pour in the tank and swish around that works.

 

[tonkadoctor]

Haha, no new tanks for this broke *******. Don't even suggest it!

Haha, keep patching it. It'll eventually cost more patching it than replacing it.......especially when it dumps that $4 gallon diesel all over the ground.

New tanks are only US$98.88 each at Advance Auto Parts

there is dome stuff you can pour in the tank and swish around that works.

POR15 US standard tank sealer and it ain't cheap..... you will also need to clean it with Marine Clean and prep it with Metal Ready to get it to stick.....Plus get out any epoxy and paint you may have gotten inside the old holes and if your tank is as bad as it sounds this is not a cure all for it and won't last long. Replacing the tank is cheaper than this stuff by the time you are done.

 

[Mr_Roboto]

Fuel will eat through fiberglass eventually.

Get a junkyard tank or buy new. Once a tank is rusted there's no going back. Someone here may even have an old tank.

When I was in high school I ran off a 56 gallon marine tank in the bed until I could get a junkyard tank.

 

[swampdigger]

It's gonna be my WVO tank. I picked up a free huge ass tidy tank that I was gonna put a heater in, and make that my fuel tank... but it's just too huge.

I wonder if kitty-hair body filler would work?

 

[tonkadoctor]

I wonder if kitty-hair body filler would work?

Tiger hair, kitty hair whatever you want to call it is all the same thing, fiberglass gel resin with the hair already mixed in to it so you don't need to use mat.

Here's some FWI for you.....Fiberglass is waterproof, not fuel proof and plastic body fillers like Bondo are not waterproof.

Patching the holes in the fuel tank like you are talking about is the same as people that do bodywork by just filling a rust hole with bondo or fiberglass without cutting out the rust and welding new metal in first. Patches like this simply don't hold and bubble in a few months when moisture is getting to them.

 

[subway]

hey if you get out near central pa i got a set of gasser tanks which should be the same for 25 each if you want.

 

[swampdigger]

Haha, I'd like to head out that way! Maybe now that I'm running free WVO I can do a North America road trip some day. It's only... a few thousand miles from here?

Thanks though, but I think I got 'er. I coated the whole tank in fiberglass resin. A couple nice thick layers. If it lasts the summer, I'll be happy. I can afford a new tank in a few months.

 

[datkinsonsr]

I have a tank in very good condition I removed from my 89 F250. Thought it was leaking but it turned out to be only a bad gasket. It can be yours for the shipping if it fits.
Doug

 

[MIDNIGHT RIDER]

NEVER BUY A JUNK-YARD TANK

Many years ago, on my old 78 K-20, the tank persisted in staying wet around one of the straps.

I let one of my elders convince me that my truck could burn down and I should go to the friendly neighborhood junk-yard and get a replacement.

I did.

Bad mistake.

Lesson I will never forget.

I installed the "new" tank, then filled it full.

Dumb like, I left the truck sitting in a blacktop parking lot, right near someone's front door, while I went away with someone else.

I returned to a LAKE of Ethyl gasoline all under my truck.

There was hardly enough gas left to get home.

A brand new tank was installed the next day.

The junk-yard tank cost me a non-refundable cash investment of $50 and 16 gallons of Ethyl gas, plus the trouble of installation and the embarassment of flooding someone's property with gasoline.

If I was experimenting with waste vegetable-oil tanks, I would try to make one out of one of those thirty-gallon plastic drums; some are oval-shaped, and I have seen a few that were nearly rectangular.

They are very thick, tough, and will not rust.

They can easily be drilled for fittings and hole-sawed for gauge-ports.

 

[swampdigger]

Well the tank isn't leaking yet! I have a heater installed in it, and everything. Took my first burn on 100% WVO tonight, and it runs just fine.