Best way to clean inside of fuel tank?

[Triumph Geordie]

Hi,
The fuel tank on my Herald 1200 is full of rust & silt which is finding its way to the fuel filter & blocking it up regularly. I need to take it off & flush it out. Does anyone know the best way of doing this and what cleaning agents I should use?

Cheers!

[Clive]

Had heard chucking some sharp gravel in the tank with some water and a very good shake will move most stuff. Frosts and others sell a kit that could then be used to finish the cleaning and then coat the inside of the tank.

[LouisW]

How I did it was with the use of electrolysis. Basically I filled the tank with water and put in soda crystals. I hung a piece of metal tubing through the filler cap into the tank itself (making sure it didn't touch the sides) then connected the positive lead i think it was to the metal tube and the negative to the tank edge. Just double check on those leads as if the wrong way round it can eat into your fuel tank.

It worked wonders on my tank and after 24 hours it was spotless inside and with a good rinse and dry out I was able to put it back into the car. Meant no messing with nuts bolts gravel etc staying in the bottom of your tank!

[herald948]

The problem with "mechanical" methods such as chunks of gravel or lengths of chain is that I'm pretty sure there is at least one baffle in the tank that would pretty much keep that gravel or chain from getting to parts of the tank. Louis's "electrolysis" method or other chemical methods are probably the only way to really reach as much as possible of the inside of the tank.

[Jason]

Sticking the business end of the power washer lance in the tank did the trick for me, all manner of corruption including flaked paint (body paint not tank paint) and some unidentified parts came out. I did get very wet doing it though!!

[bxbodger]

Don't use gravel- there's a lot of baffling in the tank and you'll either not get it to where it's needed or you"l never get it all out again. - used a hosepipe to clean mine out, nothing much came out other than the remains of a fuel cap (see what did you do to your triumph today thread!). You can, with a bit of careful aiming, shine a torch through the hole where the level float goes, and eyeball through the pickup pipe hole and see what's in there. The light manages to sneak past the baffles (just!) -n my case it was all clean apart from this piece of filler cap which had obviously been sucking up to the pick up pipe at random moments.

[Dave N]

I used this stuff on my tank.

http://www.rust.co.uk/products/product/413124/0001-tank-kleen/

The muck that came out was amazing! The car hadn't been on the road since 1988 so I can only assume it was the same fuel. I then let it dry out. The biggest problem I had was getting all the rust out due to lip on the fuel sender hole/baffles etc.

Once it dried I got a magnetic pick up tool and run it up and down the inside of the tank through all holes picking up the flakes of rust.

Once nothing was left to rattle around I sealed it with this.

http://www.rust.co.uk/products/product/405062/0002-slosh-ethanol-proof-petrol-tank-seal/

Any small debris left is sealed in. Worked a treat!

There are other systems about which I am sure are just as good as what I used. I just happened to use this one.  ;)

[Sheepy]

I also used the same as dave, from rust uk, and can also recommend it.  ;D

But it was for a tank I made for my truck, used the clean to clean out the oils and grease from the new steel, then the sealer to seal the tank (holds 250 ltrs, so didn't want it to leak! The original holds 500ltrs!)