27 Sept 2013 - Yet another fuel tank!!

Well after the July attempt and cost of trying to reseal the RH tank it managed to spring a leak within a couple of days. I noticed a small drip under the tank almost the size it was before the repair. Stick my hand under the tank and...yep still leaking.

I gave it a few more days just to check it wasn't trapped fuel from the last leak but no it was definitely a leak good and proper!

So what to do? Well at least this leak was very minor and the tank wasn't dropping it's level at any great rate (after 5 weeks the half full tank wasn't empty) and this is diesel/SVO blend not highly flammable petrol?

As four years ago a military tank is still around £200. This is too spendy so I did the same as before and went with the Britpart offering, which is a good copy of the original rear fill underseat type. OK the metal is not as thick but at £70 delivered you can't argue? Rob down the road was selling his ex-Mil FFR and that had a leaky tank so he donated that one so I could use the filler cap assy as before.

Now Rob's tank had leaks in almost the same locations as mine so it was worth a prod to see what I could find. Also Rob had POR15 sealed his tank as well when he rebuilt the 109.

After a combination of heating the solder joints plus a bit of crowbar'ing the support plate came away. The source of the leaks was obvious. The trapped area between the support and the base of the tank had never seen paint and was an ideal trap for 'carp' and water etc.

 

I guess this corrosion problem will exist in all tanks of this type. Applying POR15 will seal the internal surface....for a time. But if the material that the coating is stuck to is not stable the leaks will re-appear...and it can only get worse? Really what you need to do is immerse the whole tank in POR15 to do it right?....or buy the later two part pressed type from the usual suspects. They might not look 'correct' but they not have these rust traps!?

So with Rob's old tank ready to go to recycling I lopped out the old filler with the trusty 4" chop saw and made a similar hole in the new tank, after lopping the rear filler and vent stub off.  As this was a new tank I thought I would try soldering. Last time I had to resort to tack welding with the MIG.

Well the soldering worked. The fresh metal helped and a dose of plumbers flux and the lead/tin solder I had to hand did it's job. This was an old roll that came from SWMBO's late departed Dad's shed. God bless Ken.

 

 

Painted the whole tank with zinc rich primer (as before), then a good coat of exterior black gloss and left it to cure for a week. So, hopefully, this should be jacked into position this weekend. I will stick some underbody wax front and back once it's up and bolted.