Restoring Rusty

[rich weyand]

The important thing with a gas tank is that it should not be "empty". As long as a little bit of wet gasoline is present in the tank, the vapors in the tank will be too rich to allow an explosion.

I've actually watched a guy weld on a gas tank with gas in it. A bit unnerving, that.

Another option is to empty the gas and fill it all the way with water to force the gas vapor out. You can then empty the water out. Any little bit of water left will be taken up by the alcohol in modern gasoline.

The water thing was my preferred method when working on motorcycle tanks. I have wire-wheeled on a fuel tank with gas in it, though, repairing a crack in a gas tank on the car with -- you guessed it -- JB Weld. I needed to get a clean surface for the patch, so I wire-wheeled the area around the crack, which of course was open to the inside. Wet gas in the tank, though, so too rich for ignition.