Fuel tank bay ready

I was able to get a few hours in on Hapy today. Hapy day. What to do first? Well, according to the most recent plan, I need to get the engine in before the rains hit (mid-October), so anything that heads down that path would be good. I know the transaxle needs to come out, but the nagging (in my head) about having the fuel tank siting in my garage was too strong. I figured, I should get the fuel tank finished first, and then move on to the dropping transaxle business. So, after realizing I didn't have rust treatment stuff, I ran off to NAPA with the dog. 45 minutes later, I have some rust converter/sealer stuff, some spray adhesive and some generic blue paint.

After putting the dog away, I grabbed a wire brush and a dusting brush (old beatup fat paint brush) and crawled into the engine compartment. The instructions on the rust converted are in about 4pt font, but scrubbing with a wire brush and then cleaning before applying the goop appear to be pretty consistent instructions on these things. Once the rust was hit pretty hard, I pulled out the old shop-vac and cleared the dust out. It cleaned up pretty well (pictures of before and after should be here somewhere), but after re-reading the instructions, I realized that I couldn't topcoat for at least 24 hours, preferrably 48 hours. Great. I have a rare afternoon available (mrs and kids at rock show), and I'm at a wall.

So, I grabbed the Eastwood TankTone silver spraypaint and shot the fuel tank I'd prepped a few weeks eariler. "It looks brand new," my wife said when she saw it. "Sweet," says I. I then figured I'd get the sound absorbsion stuff in where there wasn't any rust. This included putting some asphalt/tar patches (like brown bread) on some of the exposed sheet metal. These materials are pretty similar but the manufacturers all claim theirs is the best. Anyway, they all convert vibration noise into low heat. I've found that you only need to cover about half the exposed steel to get the majority of the benefit. Again, the manufacturers say you have to use multiple layers, but there are diminishing returns after covering half, and those patches are spendy. Anyway, after the patches were down, I started working with closed cell insulation for absorb the ambient noise. Rolls of foil-sided insulation is available at home stores (Lowes, HomeDepot) for about $15 a roll. At least that's about what I paid when I got this roll a while back. A little spray adhesive and some careful measure/cutting, and the rust free areas are covered. I'll shoot paint in the engine compartment next, then I'll drop the transaxle.
Thanks for staying tuned-