It’s that time of year again when I inevitably succumb to the heinous cocktail of germs that the new influx of students bring to my workplace. I really cannot afford to lose this time, either at work or home but short of calling in Hans Blix I’m sure “Fresher’s Flu” will continue to be an occupational hazard until we can eradicate the common student…I mean cold! So in between the fever/shivers/aching cycle I thought I’d take the opportunity to begin the saga of the Amigo petrol tank.
I’ve been concerned about the tank on the camper since we bought it. There was always rusty water in the inline filter. So having reached the point where I needed to weld the sill right next to the tank I figured it was the opportune moment to drop it down and refurbish it. The Spider also has a steel tank which will need protecting from modern bio-fuels, so I bought a kit from Frost that was big enough for both tanks.
I dropped the tank down, drained and flushed it out with hot water. Then I filled it with the Marine Clean industrial degreaser which did it’s job for a couple of hours and then was recovered and the residue rinsed out. All was going well.
The next step was to fill the tank with rust remover.
The kit comes with Metal Ready but I had a large quantity of DEOX-C mixed up and decided to use this initially. It’s very impressive stuff. I half filled the tank and left it on the bench to stew. The following day there was a steadily growing puddle around the bench and the bottom of the tank looked like a Tetley’s Tea Bag. Closer inspection revealed a number of places that had been soldered up in the past.
Now the tank sealant in the kit is claimed to repair small holes like these but to be honest, I’m not keen to give it the benefit of the doubt when I’m likely to be sitting inside this van with a gas cooker blazing away. It had to be a new tank!
I’ll describe the design process in the next instalment.