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Can anyone recommend the best brand of gas tank liner?Has
anyone had a coating fail? What’s the best way to prepare a tank?
Do I dare remove all the rust? Thanks!
Tony Costa
Tony, I’ve used the tank liner available from Bill Hirsch on 3 or 4 cars with good results. Just don’t use any really old Hirsch liner you might have lying around as they had to change the formula some years ago to accomodate ethanol fuels. I’ve had good luck putting a fairly heavy chain inside, then shaking the tank to knock the loose rust off, and then flushing it thoroughly. Follow up with tank etch and then the liner and it should turn out just fine.
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.
I have used a company called gas tank renu -usa with very good luck
http://www.gastankrenu.com/ they open the tank clean it coat it and reseal it. I know of several pa members that have also used them with good results.
I used an older bill hirsh formula when I drove from Austin TX to Buffalo in 2001. the ethanol in the northern states gas turned my liner into what looked like coffee grounds.