Thread: Fuel tank collapsed under Vaccuum. Replace or Repair??

Empty tank. Fill with water. Add compressed air. POP!

Ron

Ooops :!:

Well, tagging it onto one of your other threads about jerry cans... Repair the tank for now and then replace it soon for a long range tank.

Mark.

i'm not going to fill him with water as i'll never get it all out and water and Diesel dont work real well.

I'll try the compressed air. but might be a few weeks away.

Bugger now i will need 2 jerry of fuel when i go away on the 13th may.

Ohh well. nothing i can do.....

Originally posted by sclarke
i'm not going to fill him with water as i'll never get it all out and water and Diesel dont work real well.

I'll try the compressed air. but might be a few weeks away.

Bugger now i will need 2 jerry of fuel when i go away on the 13th may.

Ohh well. nothing i can do.....

Ahh, forgot you had a diesel. Compressed air should be OK without water. I wouldn't put compressed air in a petrol tank unless it had been steam cleaned or filled with water.

Actually, filling with water may hinder. I'm not an engineer so the following could be rubbish, but.....

Assuming the tank is fulll and the compressed air is applied. The area upon which the air is acting may only be the filler neck - say 3" diameter at most. That's about 7 sq inches (I'm using inches 'cos we are used to using PSI not metric units of force and pressure).

Let's further assume you can get 100psi from the compressor. That's a force of 700 pounds.

But if the tank is 1/2 empty and assuming it's 2 ft square (it'll be bigger), that's a surface area (of the diesel still in the tank) of 576 sq inches. At 100 psi, that makes 57,600 lbs (about 23 tons or 26 tonnes) force trying to push the tank out. And that's on one side only. The other sides will also have air pressure acting upon them so the combined forces will be extremely high - perhaps dangerously so and may damage the tank.

It looks like you'd need a much lower pressure with the tank empty.

Are there any ginger beers on the list who could tell me I'm spouting rubbish?

Ron

My thoughts was to drop the tank. Plug it all up.
Make an adaptor to get compresssed air in it.

Then put in a few pounds and slowly wind the regulator up to increase the pressure. when it starts to reshape back the pressure off and slowly increase it again.

when it is close the the shape i'll leave it as that. dont want a round tank...

Just found out.
Tank is the same as a 86 Rangie.

Could be a easy thing to get....

Now who has a long range tank laying around.....

if you leave it sitting in the sun half full with the non-vented cap on, wont it build up pressure on its own and just pop itself back into shape?

i mean the whole car not just the tank....

"Are there any ginger beers on the list who could tell me I'm spouting rubbish?"

Maybe not quite rubbish ... ya find all sortsa goodies at the tip .. [img]style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/laugh.gif[/img] [img]style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/laugh.gif[/img] [img]style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/laugh.gif[/img]

Pressure is pressure is pressure. Won't make any difference if its filled with water or fairy floss. Add compressed air and you'll get the same result.

Cheers

P.S. Buggered if I could get the quote thingy to work .. :roll: :roll: