willysmjeeps.com

My M38A1 fuel tank is badly varnished from old fuel. I am thinking about cutting a 55 gallon barrel in half and boiling the tank. Anyone found a good way to remove varnish?

I've seen guys on youtube strap tanks to small cement mixers and throw small rocks inside to loosen stuff in the tank but that I think is more for rust.

Most places that re-core radiators will be able to hot-tank your gas tank, for a fee.

Alternatively, I saw this on the web (some guy trying to remove some old POR-15 tank sealer from a motorbike gas tank). Crazy idea, but might be worth a try:

go to Kmart and buy "the works" toilet bowl cleaner. Buy two bottles of it. Pour both in, fill the rest up with hot water. Plug the holes in the tank with tape, let it sit for 30 minutes shaking it around every 10 minutes. Pour it out, wash out tank and dry it with hair dryer then fog it with WD40, your tank will be shiny bare new metal inside. The s@#t is like $2 a bottle. I use to do that with my old CB hondas and the tanks were FILLED with heavy rust, cleaned them out like new every time. Not too sure though how this will work on the POR 15 itself though.

The follow up posts say it worked on the POR-15 sealer......

Owen.

Thanks, I will give it a try this weekend. I'll get some before and after photos to document it. I also have 5 gallons of Metal Rescue that works very well on plain old rust but does not dissolve grease or varnish.

I had a old lawn mower with a metal gas tank that was coated inside
with a gum like goo. 6oz of MEK solvent cleaned it up real quick.
With the way things are today I would send it to a shop to have it boiled out. (MEK is nasty stuff to deal with)

Well the experiment with "the works" toilet cleaner is a bust. Had a 10 gallon pot boil boiling water at the ready. Dumped the first bottle of toilet cleaner in the tank and a couple spaghetti pots of boiling water in to help it along. While I was letting it soak I was wire brushing the rust off along the lower seams. The wire brush opened up some very fine holes from the rust and it started to leak. So that seals the deal, getting a new tank. Not worth trying to weld the holes cause that's telling me it's paper thin. I can just see more holes starting to leak as I run down the road.

Anyone have good luck with new tanks and who to order one from?

There is a place here in the U.S. that will take your tank apart and rebuild it. After seeing the hit and miss of the MD Juan tanks, I would think twice.

At the very least, don't throw your old tank out just in case.

Reskinning an existing stock tank is simple and avoids all the problems both long and short term with tank renuzit coating systems and Foreign repop no fit tanks.

Ryan /Wes,

Do you have the name and phone number of that company to reskin my tank?

Matt

I've never sent a tank out to a specialist tank skinner. I've always flushed the tank and taken to any nearby quality welding shop and had the bad skin areas replaced. Take you tank to your local radiator shop and ask them to help setup contacts to flush clean and replace bad skin areas.

Roger, will do!

Who is the best source for a new fuel tank? I see the ones on ebay anywhere from 399 to 500 .

Most of them look like they are all from Omix-ADA 17720.07? Is the issue on some of these new ones the filler angle? My engine is almost done so I need to pull the trigger on one.

Matt

Sadly, all the new tanks are made by MD Juan in the Phillipines (Omix-ADA are one of their authorised dealers). I got lucky and ended up with one that fit my M38 very well, but for every half-decent one it seems you get at least three bad ones. Quality control, ha-ha.

The best suggestion is if you can find a dealer close enough for you to drive to, take your old tank with you and compare it to one of the new ones. Alternatively, cross your fingers when you part with the $$$.

I'd recommend getting the tank repaired locally, but if you go down the new tank route I wish you luck.....

Owen.