Leaky petrol tank - cure?

The only proper solution is to totally flush the tank and weld it. Not many people want to do this, for obvious reasons!

There are products you can slosh around in the tank (Petseal?) to sort stuff like this, but they're of limited use - once a tank is going then the only proper solution is to weld or replace.

You can buy a sealer which you slosh around in the tank - its like a rubberised liquid. But you still have to remove the tank to get it even and over the holes. Don't know what brand or where you buy it there!

rm

: I have a 20 year old Mercedes with the petrol tank seeping slightly at : the seam where the two halves are joined. Okay, the obvious thing to do : is change it for a good one, but are there other less involved solutions : available? I've heard of repair kits - what do they do and do they work?

For a hole in a flat bit of the tank I have used "petrol tank sealant" (d'uh) which is a two-part epoxy putty. It worked very well and the tank has been cheerfully holding petrol without a leak since. However, I don't think it would be much good on a weeping seam unless you could clearly see a defined hole, perhaps on one side of the flange. I suppose you could wedge it all round the leaky bit, but I wouldn't think of that as more than a get-me-home sort of repair.

I personally wouldn't slosh rubbery stuff round the inside if you paid me.

New tank.

Ian

My thoughts too... I might try a sealant but will eventually bite the bullet and change it for a known good one.

stock this stuff.

But that won't be enough for my Herald estate which has rotted in the corner, due to water leaking in and sitting in the wheelwell below it.

As Herald estate tanks are like rocking horse droppings, can anyone advise on tank welding? There has been no fuel in this tank for at least three years.

Sean realised it was Thu, 24 Jun 2004 09:48:51 +0100 and decided it was time to write:

A long time ago, when I was much younger and carefree, I soft soldered holes in fuel tank seams with a great big electric iron. It was easy, cheap, quite successful and I survived, but I'm not sure if I would do it again...

I had a mishap in France some time ago when a road hump caught my exhaust system and dragged it backwards into the petrol tank causing a small leak. We got some two-pack epoxy stuff from a nearby supermarket which cured the leak until I was able to change the tank.

There is a company that coats fuel tanks to preserve them indefinitely but I can't remember it's name.

I repaired a motor mower tank with plumber's lead and a blowlamp. I rinsed out the tank first of course and then applied the torch to the open filler cap just to burn off any residual vapour but there was no noticeable flame or explosion :-) It was a lot smaller than a car tank!

It was somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the drugs began to take hold. I remember Sean saying something like:

If you can get the tank out without it falling apart, clad the whole thing in fibreglass - 3 layers of coarse mat will do it.

Grimly Curmudgeon realised it was Fri,

25 Jun 2004 22:23:14 +0100 and decided it was time to write:

Ugh. This is not uk.rec.cars.bodge

There are Epoxy resin/fibreglass compounds you can get for lining the inside of petrol tanks. However, you'll need to remove the tank to do it anyway. And they are not cheap. Used in the motorcycle trade, which is where I got my last lot from.

Alex

I've soft soldered a Triumph tank in the past, can't recommend it. You really need a mucking big blowtorch and to purge the tank thoroughly. I didn't and the tank nearly got to 20ft. If I had been stupid enough to lean over it I've have lost my head. After that it was safe to solder and I completed the job.

Unfortunately, a leakign tank means that it's about to go big time and this one did, failing in numerous pinholes until I got pissed off and bought a new one.

The only solution that seems to work is made by 3M. It's a two-part sealant that IIRC creates a butyl rubber lining to the tank. I've heard others (mostly in the US claim that it has saved tanks for which no spare was available.

In the Jag world at the moment the feeling seems to be that it is better if no spare is available to pay someone to fabricate a tank in stainless.

It was somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the drugs began to take hold. I remember Yippee saying something like:

It's not a bodge, you cretin, it's a perfectly acceptable way of protecting a fuel tank.

Grimly Curmudgeon realised it was Sat,

26 Jun 2004 19:19:57 +0100 and decided it was time to write:

In my book, any 'repair' or 'protection' that involves sticking fibreglass to less-than-new metal is no more than a bodge, as it is bound to be just a temporary 'fix'.

You'll no doubt think of another name to call me and tell me that you're cladding the whole thing in fibreglass, so no sticking to metal is involved. That's very clever. So the remains of the rusting tank are still inside the glassfibre cladding and continue to turn into puff pastry, and the fuel lines, filters and carbs get clogged up with rust particles.

This may be a perfectly acceptable way of 'protecting' a fuel tank for you, but I'd rather do a more permanent job and get a new tank or form my own fuel tank from shiny new metal if a replacement were unobtainable. The latter would certainly yield a lot more satisfaction than 'cladding the whole thing in fibreglass'.

It well may be... but I wouldn't fancy something like that on my car!!!

-- Howard Rose

1966 VW Beetle 1300 Deluxe 1962 Austin Mini Deluxe 1964 Austin Mini Super Deluxe (cars on website)

I once heard that to weld motorcycle tanks they rinsed out and then stuck the end of an exhaust pipe into the tank and flushed it out with fumes . After a while it became safe to weld.

It was somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the drugs began to take hold. I remember Yippee saying something like:

You're talking out of your arse, old fruit. This method has been used successfully for years in bus fleets.

But then, as an armchair expert, you wouldn't know that, would you?

It was somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the drugs began to take hold. I remember Howard Rose saying something like:

Fine; who's forcing you?

If the tank is leaking... then the problem is almost certainly

*inside* the tank. Therefore, by cladding it with whatever is simply going to gover up the problem, not fix it. You'll get fuel contamination, rust in the lines, etc.

Therefore, it is certainly considered a bodge - at best.

-- Howard Rose

1966 VW Beetle 1300 Deluxe 1962 Austin Mini Deluxe 1964 Austin Mini Super Deluxe (cars on website)