TheSamba.com :: View topic - Re-coating outside of fuel tank

Tue Sep 30, 2008 7:26 pm

I just dropped the fuel tank on my '89 2wd Westy in preparation to do a reseal. I found a couple of dozen spots of what appears to be lite rust from either dents or something was wearing up against it or ?. Also, I can't seem to tell if theres rust in the seams between the top and bottom or its just tainted with the red soils of Moab. Since the interior appears to be rust free, I would think this tank is worth saving.

Plan was to re-coat the tank with truck bed liner anyways, but I am not sure the best way of going about it now that I see the rust. What I was thinking was to scrape the old rubber coating from the areas around the rust. Then paint a lite coat of POR-15 over the rust, followed by a lite scuff, then finally truck bed liner. Or is it best to hand sand(no power tools obviously) the rust off as much as possible and spay the bed liner? Or both? What's the best approach?

Also, the underside of the tank is coated with some kind of hard waxy like substance on top of the old rubber like coating. This is peeling away, and I assume that I should scape this off completely before spraying the bed liner, but its a freakin' bear to remove it. Any tips on how best to get rid of this gunk? Is this something I should replace after I spray the bed liner? If so, what is it called.

Is all this work worth it to just save a stock tank? The aftermarket tanks available don't seem to have a great reputation, but should I just buy a new tank and be done with it?

FYI - I did a search with no satisfactory answer.

Thanks

Wed Oct 01, 2008 6:09 am

Covering the tank with bed liner is an excellent idea--

Take a palm sander with 180 papaer on it and wave it over the surface of the tank, blow or brush a coat of the POR-15 on the whole surface area of the tank, skuff the POR-15 up, and lay the coat of bedliner on it.

It'll make for a bullet proof , rust free tank.

To get the wax oyl off of the bottom of the tank---soak it in fuel oil, and wipe it off.

The fuel oil / diesel fuel will soften up the wax oyl rust proofing enough to make the removal speedy

Wed Oct 01, 2008 6:12 am

didn't know if you have seen this or not

It's about repairing your tank

http://www.kayakwesty.com/gastank.html

Wed Oct 01, 2008 6:34 am

Fuel oil will work to strip the old coating off, another option is a chemical stripper easily found at Home Depot. In the paint department, you'll find a variety of stripping products, I can't remember the brand I used, but it was a jelly-like pink colored stinky mess. Worked great though!! Use gloves no matter what you use!

Bad ending to my story was that I would up getting a new tank anyway. The inside of mine had too much rust and scale to save. Outside sure looked clean though!! :D

Wed Oct 01, 2008 7:10 am

Unfortunately, TK, I don't have enough POR-15 to cover the entire tank or even just the bottom. So my thoughts are to just paint just the rust with POR-15. Then cover the entire tank with bed liner.

kayakwesty wrote: didn't know if you have seen this or not

It's about repairing your tank

http://www.kayakwesty.com/gastank.html

Yea, I have already seen that. Actually, I printed it out and "installed" it into my Bentley. Very helpful! Many thanks for the time you spent on the write up. I owe you a beer!

Wed Oct 01, 2008 9:06 am

Quote: Many thanks for the time you spent on the write up

very cool...you wonder if people use that stuff...and no problem...it's why I love thesamba here

Wed Oct 01, 2008 9:33 am

<<Unfortunately, TK, I don't have enough POR-15 to cover the entire tank or even just the bottom. So my thoughts are to just paint just the rust with POR-15. Then cover the entire tank with bed liner.>>

Huh--

Being that the tank is under the the front of the Van--Ok, even mid ships, it catches a lot of crap off the front wheels.

I would think that you'd want this to be a one time and done job--

To get the bed liner to stick your gonna have to scratch up the entire tank.
If our not going to use some kind of primer under that urethane it'll surely pop or roll off .

You mentioned the POR-15, which is pretty good stuff.

Wada ya going to do to prepare the rest of the tank--zinc chromate it, or lacquer prime it?

our heading in the right direction by slapping the bed liner on the tank---it would be a bg mistake on your part, not to prepare it correctly prior to the urethane bed liner application.

What kinda bed liner you gonna use?
Roll on Herculiner?

Wed Oct 01, 2008 9:52 am

Rhinoculips wrote:

Plan was to re-coat the tank with truck bed liner anyways, but I am not sure the best way of going about it now that I see the rust.

I did this. I used polyurethane type liner. NOT the rubberized stuff. But.....

I put on two *thick* coats with a brush. (spraying wasn't really an option) I found the tank a *tight* fit after that and feel the bed liner may have contributed to that. The tank was an aftermarket which may have also have contributed to the poor fit. Regardless, it made fitting it a PITA. I sanded the top coat a little to remove some of the high brush spots. It went in.

IMHO, if you use bed liner, spray it on, and not too thick.

Cheers,

Neil.