Exorcism of tank goo

[pselaphid]

The little old lady PO had not driven this car for many years before I got it, so cleaning the tank was high on my list of to-do's. Then a couple days ago it stalled on the street locally. I changed both fuel filters...no go. Then Mity-Vac'd the line from the tank and pulled a MITY-VACUUM! Got 20 inches of vacuum before I finally pulled some fuel through. Plugged tank screen. Managed to clear it enough to get home by repeatedly pulling fuel under high vacuum, then releasing, thus blowing fuel back through the clog. This is yet another good use of the mity-vac and will work as an emergency fix for a clogged filter as well in the event you don't have a spare filter on board (but you ALWAYS have your mity-vac, right?). Suck hard and fast, then release. The sudden return will loosen the clog for a while and you can limp someplace safe to deal with it.

I spent the better part of a day pulling, cleaning, and drying the tank. I used a couple changes of degreaser, sloshing, then garden hosing it. I also zip tied a wad of steel wool to a long stick and scrubbed the bottom with degreaser, and repeated the rinsing, then set it in the sun and blew air through it periodically with a leaf blower. Was dry by the next morning, reinstalled, and refilled. Check out these pictures of my tank screen next to the clean one from my donor and the gunk I peeled off of it. Note that even the strainer's mesh pattern is preserved on the coating of fungal-bacterial goo. The tank itself had at least a half inch of the stuff covering the bottom. If you are doing this anyway and also considering a new set of shocks, this is a good time to do the rear shocks too because you can do them without taking out the rear seat.

Also, I was able to resolder the copper wire connection on my non functional tank sender and fixed it thanks to instructions from an old thread. And of course, replaced the tank hoses.

I'm starting the New Year with a clean tank and a working fuel gauge!