fuel tank prep inside and out

I haven't documented this process yet. Now that it's about to go into the bus, I wanted to snap a few pictures and write down what I did. I thought that pulling the tank and sealing it would be a good idea before changing fuels (gas to diesel). Add to that, the fact that the fuel tank had probably never been out of the bus, there was a pretty good chance that there was a bunch of gunk in there. Maybe rust. Maybe some kind of foreign objects. Oooh.

Supplies-
So, if you're going to do this, I bought my tank coating stuff from Eastwood. Many sites recommended using muriatic acid to clean out the rust. I found something at HomeDepot that claimed to work as well. "Hmm," I thought. "Sure." I bought a bottle of it, thinking it could only waste my time and money, but wouldn't make things worse. I also got a spray can of "TankTone" from Eastwood for the outside. Of course, you need a bucket for the cleanser stuff, rubber gloves to protect your hands and rags. You may want a replacement fuel level sender or at least a new gasket. I didn't replace either, and I'll post if that decision ends up haunting me.

Getting at it-
You don't have to remove the engine to get the tank out, but honestly, you'd be crazy to go through that much effort. If you want to go that route, you have to pull the ignition and fuel system out, and even then, its harder to get the tank out. So, you (wisely) drop the engine. Once out, pull the firewall. There are the obvious screws, but on an older bus ike mine, there are 2 hidden screws on either side of the transaxle. After about 30 minutes of looking and poking around, I grew impatient and pulled those last 2 screws with a pry bar. Not exactly pretty, but effective. So, now you're looking at the fuel tank in its native state. Remove the ground screw for the fuel sender from the ceiling and unplug the signal wire from the right side. The tank is held down by 2 straps that have a bolt that goes through the floor and is held down by a nut. 13mm, IIRC. Disconnect the fuel feed hose from the filler (behind that paintcan lid looking thing to your right), disconnect the vent lines, and the tank is ready to come out.... almost. Two things first: 1 - disconnect the fuel line from the fuel pump and drain the tank (completely) into a bucket. 2 - remove the fuel line from the bottom of the tank.

The tank takes some wrestling to get out, but it will come out. My tank had some surface rust on it, and a little varnish on the inside, but otherwise, it was in really good shape. The tank bay was dirty and had some surface rust too, but it was solid. So, once it was out, I took a bunch of pictures, and got to work. The step-by-step how-to comes with the Eastwood products, so I won't detail them and possibly do it out of order. Basically, the varnish is removed, the rust is neutralized and the inside is coated with this white milky stuff. The picture to the right is a poor picture of the inside of the tank. That shiny column in the middle is the fuel level sender.

After the inside was done, I shot the outside with the TankTone. Now, its ready to go back in, and it looks great. Hopefully, it can withstand the wrestling back into the bus without getting all scratched... not like I'd really see it anyway.