The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area General Truck Talk Fuel tank rusty inside. '41 3/4 ton. Options?

I am in the midst of restoring my great uncle's '41 3/4 ton long wheel base that he bought in 1942. Don't want a show truck, just a reliable nice looking driver. Gas tank is rusty inside, no holes though, and the three gallons of three year old drained gas from the last time I ran it was not cloudy with rust particles. Local rad shop says they will cut three 10 inch holes in it, bead blast it clean, TIG weld the pieces back in and seal it up with a liquid sealer for about $235. Guy says he has probably done over a hundred of them that way. Question, are replacement tanks made? Are there other tanks from modern iron that can be substituted, with modification or without? I read a lot of posts about acid cleaning and shaking it after dumping in a bunch of 5/16 square nuts. Some guy swears by the square nuts. Any thoughts on the subject?

Either I didn't do it right or there isn't much in the archives about the subject.

Trucks history is as follows. Bought by my great uncle in Nebraska in 1942 for farm use, he parked it in the garage in town in 1962, and it was purchased by my girlfriend in 1972 for $350 before we were married. She wanted a funky truck! We divorced in 1988 and in 1990 she gave Hannah back to me for my 40th birthday. Nice Ex!

Apparently somewhere in the family photos, there is a photo taken in the early 50's of the truck so many sacks of oats in the grain box, that the overload springs have a reverse curve and the tires are flat. My great uncles and grandfather are supposedly in the photo grinning for all they are worth. No one can find the photo.

This topic has been discussed in length a few times, do a search on it and you wil find lottsa engineous ways to clean a rusty tank that wont cost but a few dollars and a little time and NOT REQUIRE cutting holes in your solid tank.

If you ever find that photo, you absolutely must post it for us to see! Good luck with your truck.

welcome to the garage highiron - try a search for "gas tank sealer" [with quotes], that's been discussed ... cleaning isn't as important as seal coating it after so it doesn't rust right away again

Bill

Jim Carter is, or will be offering a repop tank for your truck. Probably cheaper than fixing the old one.

If it don’t leak why does it need fixing ?? Soap, water, nuts (square or hex) and a couple of cans of “dry gas” . Besure you install a good filter in addition to the standard water trap.

THE FILLING STATION lists several fuel tanks for a 1941 truck. I don't have a 41 so I can't tell if any are what you're looking for.

Kip, what's a "standard water trap"???
Denny Graham
Sandwich, IL

HighIron...........


Find a Caustic Soda tank and give it a dunk!


Will remove ALL rust, sludge, scale etc. and will restore the metal to as new condition.

Denny:

I guess most would call it a sediment trap. It’s that little filter sort of a thing with a clear glass bowl placed somewhere along the fuel line . On our old cars my dad would point it out to me. Then he would show me that there always seemed to be a small amount of rusty water in the bottom of the glass bowl.

I guess in the “old days” one could never really trust the gas station to not have a little water in their tanks. Also there was the constant breathing of the gas tank itself as the cool nights and warm days changed the air pressure in those old atmospherically vented tanks