Tank cleaning, Or new? Options

[r_towle]

What is the new “best practice” for removing and cleaning a fuel tank?
Car sat for 15 years.
Previously I took a tank to a radiator shop to have him boil it out.
He decided that drilling a 2.5 inch hole on top of the tank, drivers side somehow made sense. He did repair the hole as just normal practice. It looked like shit, I tossed it out.

Just needs fuel system redo and seals.

I also heard someone is making new tanks now?

Rich

[jrmdir]

Providing this for informational purposes only. I'm not advocating cleaning over new but I have a special circumstance that nudged me to clean mine and am sharing before and after photos.

My circumstance is that I just bought this car that had been sitting for 3 years and I want to at least drive it around the block for evaluation purposes before starting a lengthy refurbishment. Part of that will be a new tank but who knows when I'll need it and there are more impactful parts to buy just now. So FWIW, I'm going to drive it (hopefully) for a while with a partially cleaned out tank.

If anyone cares, after banging around on it with rubber mallet and shaking out and vacuuming as much of the crud as possible, I flushed it with water, let it dry and poured in a bottle of fuel system cleaner. Next I added a few handfuls of left over nuts and bolts, sealed the openings and gave it the old cocktail shaker treatment. Then flushed it out with more water and took it to the DIY car wash for soapy pressure wash. Let it dry for a week or so and there you have it. Is there still probably crud on the walls of the other end behind the baffle? - certainly. Will it clog the outlet any time soon? Hopefully not. I also have blown out the fuel lines and replaced the filter and all tank gaskets and washers.

Ron