Still won't start *sigh*

[Hasbeen]

Draining the tank is pretty easy.

Just pull the supply hose off the fuel pump, & the syphon effect will drain most of your tank through there.

Then jack up one side of the back of the car. Remove the pickup/ sender fitting from the tank. Be gentle, the rheostat in the gauge sender doesn't like rough treatment.

Insert a hose through the hole, & across to the now low side front of the tank, & suck to start the syphon, into a bucket. Go have a beer to get rid of the taste of petrol. Come back & be horrified at what came out of your tank.

I found I had to add more fuel, & repeat this syphoning process twice more, before I stopped getting silt & water, as it is hard to get the last bit.

Not too long after this, [a year perhaps] my tank rusted through from the inside, so if your tank is original, replacement may be the best idea.

Hasbeen

[scribe]

Thanks Hasbeen.

I bought a hand pump yesterday thinking I may have to do this job, although to syphon may be quicker. I Googled and Googdon't yesterday but couldn't find anyone who advertised petrol tank refurbishment hment rbishment rbishment, so it's either a cottage industry nowadays run by people without Internet sites, or I was using the wrong search terms.

I did see a product called 'Frosts 4 stage fuel tank repair kit' and another called POR 15. the first seemed very time consuming indeed, dont know about the second but there is a video to watch.

If I go that far I'll probably go ahead with the restoration. I've found a specialist close to me that can sort out any metalwork, so I may have a chat with them. I'm worried about the project stalling if I go for itso I may go into work mode and draw up a project plan. Keeping estimates conservative will give me a good visual on the task ahead.

[Graham.Fountain]

scribe,

Have you traced where the water has been getting in? I had a similar problem with water in the fuel, which was rusting the steel parts in the bottom of a pair of Dellortos, and causing all sorts of fun and hilarity (not). I blamed ASDA, where I was mostly buying fuel, but it turned out to be getting in through the keyhole in a locking petrol cap. Got a standard one with a vent, and the water stopped getting in.

BTW, did you know that if you fit a US cap to a UK car, the fuel pump sucks the petrol tank flat? At the time, I was filling the tank to the top every week to compute consumption (c. 27 mpg), and wondering why consumption appeared to be going down as the tank got smaller. Fortunately, the local parts supplier took responsibility, and paid for a new tank and fitting it.


TR7 Sprint VVC 697S (some of)
TR7 Sprint A TR7 16V (fake, rusty):
B&Y '73 Doly Sprint (kids!)

[claypole1360]

My two penneth, I believe it is quite a tough job but dropping the tank on one of my other classics gave me a chance to rustproof under it, the metalwork there was good but hadn't seen the light of day since the day it left the factory. If you have ascertained that it is the tank at fault, then if finances allow you should change it rather than fix it. Assuming that you have found the root cause, it will probably be a case of fit and forget for the next 40 odd years.[:D]



1978 TR7V8 FHC
1962 Herald Coupe 1200
1989 Peugeot 205 xs
2003 Peugeot 206 GTI
2009 VW Passat

[scribe]

Graham - I can imagine your frustration not knowing about the fuel cap at the time

As to where it's getting in? Not yet, but I assume it can only be through condensation forming (tank has been kept at a minimum level - my bad), or through the filler neck. The top of the neck looks like a bit of a water trap to me, so I'll check drain holes are clear etc...

clay pole - yes it looks tough and as I said earlier I may dive into the restoration if I remove it (that's what I bought it for after all). I'll drain it in situ first and see if I can solve the problem at least on a temporary basis.

[dursleyman]

Scribe, some types of locking cap allow water to leak in through the keyhole.

Russ

1980 TR7 Sprint DHC
Dursley
UK

http://tr7russ.blogspot.co.uk/

[Graham.Fountain]

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="1" face="Century Gothic, Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by scribe</i>

Graham - I can imagine your frustration not knowing about the fuel cap at the time.
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></font id="quote"></blockquote id="quote">
Yeah, I just went to the local BL/Rover dealers and bought a cap for a 1980 TR7, as you could in those days ('92-'93 ish). It was the fault of Rory, the store man, who didn't read the fiche properly, and ordered a US one. Hadn't had the car very long at the time, so I didn't know the difference.

I was ever so slightly pissed off when I looked underneath and saw the tank sucked nearly flat. Lucky I still had the receipt and Rory admitted the error. Bet there's few places where you get stuff by post that would have admitted it - mentioning no names, familial relationships, or shire counties in eastern England.

I see Russ has also found the problem with locking filler caps and the 7. It's a bugger, ain't it; especially, with the twin choke sidedraughts that are much more sensetive to water than the old Skinners Union carbs - can't think of any steel in the SUs to rust, so you're prob. mostly okay till the crap bungs the jets up.



TR7 Sprint VVC 697S (some of)
TR7 Sprint A TR7 16V (fake, rusty):
B&Y '73 Doly Sprint (kids!)

[FI Spyder]

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="1" face="Century Gothic, Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by scribe</i>


I did see a product called 'Frosts 4 stage fuel tank repair kit' and another called POR 15. the first seemed very time consuming indeed, dont know about the second but there is a video to watch.
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></font id="quote"></blockquote id="quote">

The POR-15 stuff is like magic. There is one caviat. The sealer needs to be drained, if there is too much stuff left in it won't cure. Since the hole(s) are not the low point you need to get a bung welded in a corner so it can be drained properly. Fortunately this had been done on mine for the previous sealer (which had failed and was flaking off). I had to remove the old sealer first (not POR-15), which was 95% of the job. I had no choice as the FI tanks are different and no longer made. Lots of work but only have to do it once.

http://s119.photobucket.com/user/Spit999/slideshow/TR7/Sealing%20Gas%20Tank

- - -TR7 Spider - - - 1978 Spitfire- - - - 1976 Spitfire - - 1988 Tercel 4X4 - Kali on Integra - 1991 Integra - Yellow TCT

[scribe]

I've just drained the tank. Got the back end right up in the air to aid the process and disconnected the pipe before the fuel pump. I got a surprising 17.7 - 20 litres out of it. It wasn't really rusty, more milky/very cloudy and I couldn't tell how much was water(if any). It did get clearer after roughly the first 10 litres.

What was very confusing was the last 1.5 to 2.5 litres before the trickle stopped seemed to have an oily substance in it. It was clearly floating on the top. tried to get pictures but it didn't show well. I hope I'm not being thick and I had a tank with 17.5 litres of water in it and a litre or so of petrol and that's what it would look like (I doubt it). Thoughts?

I took the sender out and syphoned off the remains - I cheated and started the flow with a hand pump [:I] That got me another 2.5 to 3 litres of a nice deep brown vintage.

I took the opportunity to check the fuel sender as the gauge isn't working and got strange results (sometimes had variable resistance, sometimes not). Does anyone know the resistance range as the sender arm moves?

There is some white corrosion next to where the arm meets the casing, so it may be junk.

I'm tempted to go and get some petrol now and put it all back together, but I don't know if I should leave the tank open for a while and an attempt to dry it out.

[Workshop Help]

At least one of our valiant and heroic band of thugs has a hand held fiber optic camera he/she/it used to observe the inside of a gas tank. In today's newspaper ads is one for sale at Harbor Freight Tools. Had I some extra coins lying around this would be a useful gadget to check out the inside of gas tanks, cylinders, and the fly lodged in my ear.

Mildred Hargis

[scribe]

Good idea. I have some amazon vouchers I'm itching to spend.

What I did do was decant the oily fuel contents into a bottle. Just took these photos:





Any thoughts on what that is?

[claypole1360]

Extra virgin?[:D]



1978 TR7V8 FHC
1962 Herald Coupe 1200
1989 Peugeot 205 xs
2003 Peugeot 206 GTI
2009 VW Passat

[Beans]

Looks very much like water with a little bit of fuel on top.

<center>
<font color="blue"><i>1976 TR7 FHC (needs some TLC ...)
1980 TR7 DHC (my first car, a.k.a. Kermette)
1981 TR7 FHC (Sprint engined a.k.a. 't Kreng
</font id="blue"><b>[url="http://www.tr7beans.blogspot.com/"]<u><b><font size="3"><font color="red">My full Blog</font id="red"></font id="size3"></b></u>[/url]</b></i></center>

[scribe]

I guess so.

At that point near the end the fluid coming out was very clear, but given that fuel floats on top of water, and given the position of the outlet from the tank, I would have thought the water would have come out first, not at the end. I didn't set a match to it to test, but I'm pretty sure petrol was coming out when I started the process.

Anyway, I've lowered the car now, so I'll leave things as they are for this evening. Not wishing to tempt fate, but the weather forecast is good for tomorrow, so I'll put the sender back in after work, get some fresh fuel and try and start it again.

[scribe]

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="1" face="Century Gothic, Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by claypole1360</i>

Extra virgin?[:D]


<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></font id="quote"></blockquote id="quote">

Wouldn't want to use it in the kitchen though [;)]