Reply To: Tank Cleaning

[David Stanton]

I used a bunch of nuts and Dawn liquid dish soap on a 1951 Buick car gas tank that had been dormant for decades. I kept dumping in a gallon of water with some dish soap and shaking it all around until I was dumping out clear water. Then rinsed with a little gas and let it dry thoroughly. It cleaned out the residue from gas gone bad, and the dish soap breaks down petroleum products. The nuts chipped away at surface rust. Due to baffles in the tank, it was hard to get all the nuts out, but that should not be a problem with an outboard tank. E-85 would have worked too, but water and liquid soap is cheaper and safer to work with, also not toxic when dumped out.
Dave