‘06 Fuel Tank Fix

[TedsBUSted]

This jewel has developed a leak.

Pumping out the fuel.

I'll skip a few boring details about removing straps and lines.

The tank:


The problem:

Or at least the tip of thee iceburg.
I haven't decided yet on a repair method.
The tank seems solid except for where it had rested on pads.

Meanwhile, I'm on a short leash:

[Ed Brenner]

Ted,

I used to have a 4106 and it had the same problem. Only rust was where the supports were. I cleaned it really good to bare metal.

I put a exhaust hose from my old nissan truck into the fuel fill and let it run while I use the torch and brazed all the holes. It had quite a few once I started cleaning it. Replace the supports(made new) and put rubber between tank and supports. Still had no leaks two years later when I sold it.

Brazed up many gas and diesel tanks never had one blow, but there ain't no guarantee, got to be careful !!!

ED

[TedsBUSted]

Thanks Ed,

Brazing is the repair M.O. I'm thinking of taking too, using an inert gas purge.
First I'm going to poke around a bit for a close will-fit rectangular aluminum tank.

Another random thought I had was to flip the tank so that the nice fresh top becomes the bottom.
If it lasted another 50 year stretch that'd probably do. LOL

Ted

[pvcces]

Epoxy works well on fuel tanks, both gas and diesel. The wear rate on the epoxy is slower than the steel.

For what it's worth.

Tom Caffrey

[rgrauto]

Ted, I have repaired several jeep gas tanks with fiberglass. I  cleaned the tank to bare metal,remove all oil residue and rust ,sand the tank with coarse sandpaper out past the damage and repair with 3 to 5 layers of fiberglass mat and resin. Don't mix the resin too fast with hardener and get all the air bubbles out and the tank will last for years. Has worked many times for me.     Glen Rice

[chev49]

They can easily be tig or mig welded. When I work on a tank, I just cut out a big hole in it and replace the metal, after removing the thing after hot pressure washing it with soap and water.  On antique car tanks where i can't get a duplicate one, I cut most of the top off where you cant see it, and repair it from the inside with metal, then weld the thing back together. If you observe carefully when you weld, you pretty much know before testing whether the thing will leak or not. Same with coolant tanks, etc. However, I'm just a newbe, having only worked on tanks since 1966 when i was brazing them back them.

[Mike in GA]

When I tapped into my main fuel tank to feed the diesel genset, I epoxied the plate that carried the two lines (feed line and return line) to the main tank.   That was five years ago, and no leaks. I specifically recommend Marinetex, which bonds to various metals and is immune to diesel fuel. Can also be drilled and sanded, etc. It is a superior two part epoxy that has a thousand uses around fiberglass boats, but has also mended many a rent fuel tank.
   Check it out:
http://www.marinetex.com/
Mike in GA

[TedsBUSted]

Thanks for all the suggestions.

I decided to go for the old fashioned way.
I was going to either weld, solder, or braze the tank but first needed to asses its condition:


Considering its "before" appearance, after blasting the tank I was rather pleased with its overall solid condition. Pits were rusted from the outside in, and thus I decide that a spot of braze would do the trick.


I brazed the known hole:

Then I picked and poked looking for other weak spots.
I tinned and "buttered" a few areas that I thought might cause future problems.

The repaired tank passed a leak test when filled with kerosene.
I sprayed the blasted area with self etching primer but haven't decided yet about the final paint or coating.

I'm thinking about mounting the tank on a foam board to give it more evenly distributed support. Any thoughts on that?

Ted

[JLL]

I bought my 06 in 1990. It didn't have a fuel guage so the first thing I did was to remove the tank to install a guage. When I got the tank out I found the bottom had been completely covered with fiber glass to repair leaks.  After 20 years   it still doesn't leak. Thats speaks pretty good for a fiber glass repair. 
JLL