Are Old Gas Tanks Worth Saving

[55 Fargo]

Hey all dropped the gas tank out of the 52 today. No old fuel or anything in it. Rust chips and rust dust came out, the usual. The tank on the outside is in primo shape.

I am going to try and clean it out, or have it boiled at an old time rad shop.

I do not have much faith in these tank liquid liners.

How many of you have had success cleaning and re-using gas tanks?.....thanx Rockwood

[plymouthcranbrook]

I cleaned and relined the one in my 52 Plymouth about 10 years ago and have had no problems. I think it was a POR 15 product I used.

[Merle Coggins]

I had the tank in my truck done at a local radiator shop. Tanked, coated, and painted. It's still holding up just fine.

 

Merle

[Young Ed]

My truck tank was boiled out by a radiator shop. No liner and I haven't seen any rust issues in 13 years. The p15 tank got professionally done by gas tank renu.

[Don Coatney]

Shiverlay tanks are no different than Mopar tanks. Lots of threads on this topic. Pros and cons on coatings. Your choice

[Alshere59]

I have had success saving tanks in the past but it has always came down to how solid it was at the time. Yours seems solid so you have nothing to loose by cleaning it up and using it IMHO. As far as the liners I haven't used them but have seen a few tanks done that way and it seemed to work fine. 

[scott1956]

I had a fair amount of rust in my 56 Dodge Tank. I am converting to fuel injection so I needed a perfectly clean tank.  Gas Tank Renew did a great job.   They have franchised operations but my local guy was a bit of an a**hole os I shipped it out to  Gas Tank Renu.

 

http://www.gastankrenu.com

 

There are also a lot of home grown methods to salvage a tank and neutralize the rust, (just search on he HAMB or online) an you can save a lot of $$ that way.  

 

Good luck.

[55 Fargo]

The tank had lots of rust crumbs, but is in good shape.

I could not budge the fuel sender machine screws, they literally tripped the phillips head like nothing. I did soak in PB Blaster overnight too.

I had to drill the heads off the screws, then pulled sender, then tried to drill out broken machine screws, did not go well. I will have to retap to #10 machine screw threads, on at least 2 of them, can rad shops fix this?

The sender had to be pulled, the float had fallen off, not much left of it either. The funny thing is, the sender when rehooked to the fuel gauge works bang on, even though it is all rusty.

Hopefully I can fix up and clean this tank and use it again.....thanx