Reply To: Gas Tank Liners (chemical coating)

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Tony, I have also used the tank liner from Bill Hirsch on several tanks and have had excellent results. My only suggestion is to get all of the rust and varnish out of the tank. I build a wooden frame around the tank and then attached a set of flanged pipes to the frame on each end and supported it by (2) sawhorses so that it could be rotated and spun around by hand. I put about a gallon of clean sharp pea sized gravel in the tank and closed the openings up with duct tape and proceded to spin the tank. The length of time that it takes to clean the tank is totally dependant on how much rust is in there. The tanks I cleaned were pretty rusty inside and I had to run another batch of gravel thru them until the gravel came out looking like gravel instead of rust. You will find that most of the rust will be on the top of the tank where you normally cannot see it without using a lighted mirror. Once the tank was nice and shiney, it was flushed thoroughly and etched with an acid solution before applying the tank sealer. A friend of mine did his Packard tank and did not spend enough time getting rid of the rust and ended up with big messy vinyl bag inside of his tank. Take the time to do the prep work and it will turn out. The tank sealer will take care of any small pin holes or leaks in the seams, should any develop during the cleaning process. I’ve used this stuff to seal up the old cork floats also.