Once drained, you really must take the tank off and have it professionally cleaned, or replaced. There are kits for cleaning and coating it yourself also available. If this is not done, even though you rinsed the tank "really well", you will be replacing fuel filters along the highway for the next several years. Scale inside of the tank continues to flow through the line and plug up the filter.
My car was stored 18 years when I bought it. The tank was half full when new 93 octane was added and the car started and ran well for a while. It then bent 3 pushrods due to varnish making the intake valves stick. I pulled the heads and had them completely redone, but there was no place to dump 23 gallons of this mixture. I added some octane boosters and lead substitutes to the old gas and ran it hoping to get rid of the old stuff. Well it plugged up the fuel filter which I replaced and then drove it home that night and parked it.
The very next morning I tried to start it to move it out of the way and when it started it was running just like it did with the bent intake valve pushrods in the first place.
I then shut the car off when I heard it begin to start tapping. What I really need to do is get rid of that old gas and clean the gas tank out. How can I accomplish this? Can I drain the gas and do what with it? After it is gone where do I take the tank go get everything cleaned out?
This will be my project for next spring and then I will pull off the heads and return them to the machine shop yet again.
Suggestions are appreciated!
Steve Restelli
Webmaster, HistoryTV.net
http://historytv.net
Back to the Home of the Forward Look Network