De-stinking Penelope

[chuck hahn]

Dale...we havent heard much in a while on whats happening with the project. Hows the hand doing?

Andre, That plate you see is just that, a plate. All the bracketry, arms, float and electrical's have been cut off. Works great as a hole filler and it came with the petrol tank when I bought it. I didn't have to do a thing to it other than wind up the leads and bolt it on.

The M.E.K. took about two hours to dissolve the lining.

That was much quicker than I would have thought. I must find out if MEK is available around here. It could be useful!

That is another messy job completed! Good going Dale.

[rustybronco]

Andre, That plate you see is just that, a plate. All the bracketry, arms, float and electrical's have been cut off. Works great as a hole filler and it came with the petrol tank when I bought it. I didn't have to do a thing to it other than wind up the leads and bolt it on.

The M.E.K. took about two hours to dissolve the lining. I drained the MEK from the tank, put about a pint of lacquer thinner in it, sloshed it around and drained it as well. Right now it has petrol in it to keep it from rusting until the crud in the MEK settles out, then I'll put the MEK back in the tank to dissolve what ever lining material might be still left in it.

Also, no heat is necessary.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methyl_ethyl_ketone

So far so good!

I am not familiar with MEK, maybe its sold here under another name?

I hope you float is MEK resistant!

I was wondering how long it will take to loosen the lining completely. Will you need to heat the tank with MEK to speed it up?

[rustybronco]

Mmmm... the smell of MEK in the afternoon

I used the top part of a 2 inch test plug with a piece of metal to catch the lip of the filler neck and an old inner tube as the gasket material. I post a picture of it as soon as the tank is devoid of the old tank liner.

Mmmm.... the smell of paint stripper in the morning

[rustybronco]

Ed, they probably aren't all that bad, I'm just not one to bash the high spots down then fill em. The tank had a raised crease in one of the indentations that went away last night with a slight application of the body hammer. I had thought of spot welding studs on and pulling the deep ones, but because of the rusted insides I'm unsure of the metals thickness and didn't want to risk burning through. I guess I could fill it with water, but with rust already inside that didn't seem like a good idea. I may solder on a few nails and use them to pull the dents.

Fortunately (un?) for me most of the liner came off while I was trying to remove the mouse nest inside it. If someone had put a little more effort at removing the surface rust before they lined the tank, then I might consider having someone remove the coating. I guess I'll see how it goes first and then decide if it needs to be farmed out.

[Nessism]

Those dents don't look too bad Dale. I think your bigger challenge is going to be getting out that old liner and derusting. I've used MEK before and while it does soften the Kreem, there were lots of tenacious spots that just didn't want to come off. I used paint stripper and found it more effective than the MEK. At any rate, you'll find out soon enough how tenacious that liner is going to be. Hope it cooperates and slides right off for you. Just for giggles you might want to ping some local radiator shops and ask them how much they would charge for a good boil out. The derusting and cleaning chemicals are not cheap so paying a shop isn't the worst thing you could do money wise.

[rustybronco]

Andre, Lets just say that looks can be a bit deceiving.

There are numerous areas that will need filling as you can see. When I was running my hand over the tank last night looking for areas I could have missed on the first go around, I found a low section just below and slightly to left of centerline where those four circled areas are grouped together. Most of the damage can be fixed with a simple application of filler, but two of the dents are deep enough to have raised the metal around them. So, after dent removal, I might need to do a bit of shrinking on them.

You are a lucky man Andre, one dent and you didn't have to deal with rust on the inside of you tank. I wish I could have been just as lucky.

Dale, it looks quite good in the pictures I must say.

Fortunately I could get a a wooden dowel to reach my dent and it came out nicely.

I
Here was mine at the time! Looking at yours it seems like yesterday!

[rustybronco]

The paint is all removed and the metal looks pretty solid. That's something nice for a change.

There's a little surface rust that will need to be sand blasted, along with removal of a couple of the major dents before I can start stripping out the old liner. Tomorrow I'll make the block off plate for the petcock opening, find a plug to fit the filler opening and make a pick that will fit through the filler opening to help with the dent removal.

Nothing major, but lets just say it has a few spots that will need some filler applied.

Good work there Doc, sorry to hear you feeling crook, get well soon, and don't eat at strange $5 roadhouses.

[rustybronco]

Chuck, the liner appears to be kreme. I took an air hose and a screwdriver to it and removed as much of the liner as I could before I started welding in that area.



Another day home from work with what I suspect is a case of food poisoning. (No Stan, it wasn't my cooking! so you're safe) While I was home, I did get a chance to get back at stripping the fuel tank. I need to get it in paint soon, as it might be harder to get access to the booth past the end of June. So now the race is on to get it base and mid coated by then.

[chuck hahn]

Wonder what the liner is?? Seems it would have maybe flashed a bit or at least melted in some way...HMMM

[rustybronco]

The liner didn't burn but the paint on the outside of the tank did.