Well, I finally got the tanks out tonight after fighting for hours to get the
fuel drained. I couldn't figure out why nothing I did seemed to make it flow
faster. When I finally got the balance pipe out, I was amazed to find a huge
blob of silicon sealer, made up of many long strings of the stuff, sitting in
the balance pipe! It looks like someone tried to seal something (sending
unit?), with silicon instead of a gasket, and used so much that it oozed into
the tank. Then, over time, I guess that it worked it's way down through the
tank and into the pipe. No wonder I couldn't get any gas out! That stuff is
designed to seal! It probably makes sense that the silicon was used on the
sender as I am having some trouble getting a replacement gasket from both CS
and SS. Curt indicated that a lot of people just use silicon leading me to
surmise that this is what happened.
Now, onto the condition of the tanks and pipe. Looking inside, they actually
look pretty clean. There is some very spotty and very light corrosion/rust
that really just looks like slightly mottled shiny/brownish steel (equally
covering the whole surface). I spoke to a rad shop who does as tank work, and
they have told me that the boiling/coating process will take a week and will
end up with a plastic liner on both the inside and outside. Lifetime
guarantee for only $180-$200 (Canadian) PER TANK! (Yes, I did get a
competitive quote.) Looking at the tanks, I don't see any peeling paint at
all I am wondering if I really need to have them cleaned. After all, The
obvious cause of the blockage was the silicon. Any thoughts on this?
I have ordered replacement balance pipe rubber and a new filler neck, and I
have just now noticed that Victoria British has the sender gasket listed, so
I'll probably order that tomorrow. I really don't want to have to use SILICON
on it!!!
Any thoughts or comments would be appreciated.
Shaun
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