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Old 02-04-2011, 11:21 PM   #10
ivoryjohn
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Join Date: Jan 2011
Location: picauyne ms.
Posts: 251
Default Re: Epoxy sealant for leaking gas tank?

"We get too son oldt and too late schmart!" I only recently found the Ford Barn Brain Trust and wish I had found it about three months earlier when I first brought home my old sedan. I had sold it years ago and the old fellow that bought it used the steering wheel to pull himself into the car. A leak developed at a rivet on the steering wheel brace. It weeped gas. I couldn't justify driving the car as a potential fire bomb.

I didn't have these guys to offer suggestions and saw repairing the tank or trading out for a non-leaking one as my only options because I couldn't absolutely pin down the area of the leak. My sources told me that an outside fix was just a patch and would never hold gas. The only way to fix a tank was to silver solder it...or so I was told.

I'm out of breath, fat and old and changing a tank on a closed '29 Fordor is not a job to be taken lightly. A yoga guru would have been helpful twisting around inside to get the cowl braces that support the tank out of the way, NOT a fat old man! There are a lot of bolt and nuts to take out, in and outside of the car.

To be sure I had a good tank I bought one off ebay. I paid too much but I wasn't finished there. I had the new tanks brace soldered at a radiator shop...expensive place. I didn't find out about not being able to weld the hardened steel in the tanks until it was too late for my local welder buddy. He spent two days trying to replace one radiator support rod bracket that had cracked the steel it was riveted to. (I now know how to fix the tank brackets...another story) He only charged me for an hours time.

I decided to put an epoxy tank sealer in the new tank. I bought the good stuff and paint for the tank for another small fortune. It took all day just to prep the tank for the epoxy. I have to say this is really good stuff but a lot of trouble to seal the tank. What the heck I wanted something to do when I bought my car back after it was gone for 14 years. I managed to spend almost $780 on the tank, epoxy sealer, paint, reducer, soldering job and bracket replacement.

I wish you a lot of luck and try the offered fixes. If it doesn't work changing out a tank is covered in this month's Restorer Magazine. Too late to have done me any good by two months. Anybody can do it if I can. Oh well!
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