Gas tank in '59 Laurentian was in terrible shape, full of rust. When I first bought it and fit electric fuel pump near tank with a clear in line filter between pump and tank, filter would fill with a rusty slurry in just a few miles.
When I got the car home to BC from Manitoba (via truck) I flushed the tank, did the drywall screws and lacquer thinner bit. It helped a lot, but I was still changing the filer every few tanks.
Friend went through a similar sort of a problem with his Victory Jackpot motorbike. In his case, lining had failed and was flaking off in large junks clogging filters. This fellow: http://www.thevicshop.com/ was very helpful. He redid the pump for my friend and suggested a relining kit from Caswell Plating. We used the 'Dragon's Blood' kit and it worked just fine.
Obviously, a new spectra tank would have been best, but I couldn't find one for mine - it's different from the Chevrolet as the Pontiac fuel filler is to the right of center.
The appeal to me with the Caswell kit is that it needn't be perfectly clean, just free of gas and oil. (Rough rusty surface fine) I ordered this kit:
Did the lacquer thinner / screw thing again, flushed thoroughly with simple green and water, changing to water, then stuffed heat gun in sender opening and dried it carefully. Masked filler, vent, and poured mixture through sender opening and covered. Rotated tank for a good hour and then opened filler port, blew through vent as coating had clogged. Left it to cure for a week.
I didn't mask the screw holes for the sender carefully enough, so I had to tap them. Very irritating introducing bits of debris from tap into freshly coated tank, but I got most of it out.
Tank back in the car, been through a couple of fills now, checked filter today and it's clean as a whistle (are whistles clean?) where it would have been solid rust before. See picture..
A viable alternative, I think, if you cant get a new tank. Caswell has a lot of other neat stuff and were nice to deal with.
My neighbor used the high test toilet bowl cleaner to clean the rust out of his generator gas tank, its a strong acid. Nice to know how to save a rare tank with that kit.
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63 Parisienne sport coupe (The Big GTO), black, maroon interior, 409 4 speed; former owner of a 59 El Camino, 63 Corvette SWC, 62 Chev Bel Air SC. 1963- Pontiac top selling car in Canada
Mahone Bay, NS Still not old enough to need an automatic
I have never had to do this sort thing but i hear that EASTWOOD restoration supplies in the U.S. sells an excellent kit for cleaning and coating a gas tank. A good buddy of mine did the EASTWOOD thing to his 57 Chev tank and it worked perfect. Good luck.
-- Edited by long stroke on Saturday 3rd of November 2018 02:11:55 PM
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1957 Pontiac Pathfinder Deluxe sedan restored 261 six
1974 Chevrolet Caprice Estate wagon low mileage original 400 V-8
