'77 Carb issues

[manoa matt]

If you don't get the rust scale out and off the walls, any type of sealer will not stick and soon you will have a bigger problem. There are baffles in there so the sealer does not get to all the surfaces easily. You can take a couple hand fulls of nuts and bolts, or lengths of chain and drop them in and pug the ports. Shake it around for a while to knock off the rust, then dump it all out. Rinse out the remaining rust dust with anti-freeze as it will not cause the tank to rust. Follow with rinsing it out with gas to remove any anti-freeze residue. This should be fine for a few more years if you keep the tank mostly full, and change your filter. I've heard too many horror stories regarding the DIY sealer kits.

Or you can take it to a radiator shop and have them boil it out, and seal it. They should offer some kind of guarantee or warranty.

Years ago my dad would clean parts in the following process: Get a metal 55 gallon drum and cut the top half off. Place it on 3 cinder blocks, fill it with water, then dump in one can of crystalline lye, put the parts in and build a fire under the drum. Cook the soup for a few hours. The parts were painted and caked with grease/grime but came out spotless. I don't know how it works on rust. Of course we lived on a farm and had a place to dump the stuff where it couldn't get into any water supply or creek. The EPA would have put us in Folsom if they knew.

[DUCeditor]

If it were me I would drop the tank and clean it myself. At least I would try. I think whatever trash is in there was put there.I don't believe those tanks will rust , I may be wrong , someone correct me if I am. Dennis

Yes, they will. On mine it occurred where the top and bottom halves come together. The seam became porous and started to weep - unnoticeable a first (the fuel level would drop some if the car sat for a time) - and then noticeable as a wetness around the solid appearing base of the fuel tank.

My mechanic - Alex at AVA Restorations in Dublin NH - told me that is not uncommon. He sees it quite often in, for instance, older BMWs.

I bought a replacement tank from IAP during their big winter sale and had it installed in the Spring. Considering the benefits the cost was quite reasonable. I had just had the carb rebuilt late last summer so between that and some new filters fuel issues have fallen off my list.

-don