Light rust inside fuel tank - should I care?

[VicVan]

Hi all,

I removed the tank in order to change gaskets and fuel lines. There's some rust inside. Outside is in good condition. Some minor surface rust on the top but nothing major.
What do you think?

(1990 2WD. In addition to the filter after the fuel pump, I added one before the pump as well, 5 000 k ago).

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'90 Little Blue Truck, 2WD auto, FAS GenV 2.0 NA (AVH)

[Microbusdeluxe]

When I had mine out I took it to a place that did radiator work and they steam cleaned it and then coated it with some special rust preventative mojo. It seemed to work and wasn't that expensive.
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'69 Squareback RIP
'65 21 window deluxe sold before the price spike, damn it.
'70 rhd bay now a taxi in South Sudan
'81 Westy sold
'89 hightop Westy Joker syncro 16" now with Bostig!

[Pinetops]

It will probably be fine. If the money isn't much to you, you could just replace it with a new one while you have it out. If you don't want to spend the money and nothing looks like it could rust though anytime soon just run it.
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"A rolling bus gathers no rust."

[VicVan]

I like the steam-clean idea. I've searched, and unfortunately there's no radiator place nearby... So I guess I'll leave it as is.
I'll put some rust inhibitor on the surface rust on the outside of the tank and call it a day.
Next time I change the prefilter, I'll see if there's some rust in it. That will be the signal for a new tank... In a few years time hopefully
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'90 Little Blue Truck, 2WD auto, FAS GenV 2.0 NA (AVH)

[oceanair]

To keep out rust -- be sure to keep the tank as full as possible in high humidity and filled if she is not being driven often. When the van is resting humid air in the tank can condensate and that is how you get rust in a tank.
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84 Vanagon Pop Top Conversion from Tin Top, 1970 Ghia - all sweet rides! Love em!
Previous: Green 72 Tin Top, White 72 Westy, Blue 64 Beetle, Yellow 71 Squareback, 2014 Jetta TDI Wagon - wish I could have them all back!

[VicVan]

[E1]

Tough call, but in the interests of eventual restoration I tend to replace when removed. Driveline, not.

Hard to judge the rust. One way is knowing how long your fuel filters were hanging up to now. Our bus has nearly 300K on it (if ignoring the lost years) and was water-flooded in 2015 for a couple days. I never saw rust in the cube filter but only got six months of study before going to the canister post-pump filter (and two years before that, but pre-flood).

A new tank may well be worth it if rust gets out to travel more than I think, though.
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‘84 Westy, 2.1L with Digijet, 5.43 R+P, GT Gears
"Adding power makes you faster on the straights.
Subtracting weight makes you faster everywhere."
— Colin Chapman

[Mellow Yellow 74]

Looks like close up photos of minor surface rust to me, I wouldn't worry at all about that
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1962 Karmann Ghia
1974 Deluxe Microbus
1985 Caravelle (Vanagon)