It seemed like a good idea at the time. Remove the MGB’s fuel tank to clean and repaint it since the time is available. I knew it would be a gamble but on initial inspection everything looked great keeping in mind that the fuel tank is 50 years old.
After scraping away some of the dirt and a little rust it was evident that some repair work might be required. The large hole in the photo above appeared. Not pretty but I still had hopes that some JB Weld or similar could bring this tank back to life. Removing the fuel sending unit opened the tank up further for inspection and cleaning as I wasn’t too keen on blowing myself up while ridding the tank of rust. The good news here is that the sending unit looks to be in good shape with just a new gasket required.
Looking through the sending unit hole it became very evident that rust is beginning to eat away at the gas tank. At this point I still had hope that this tank might be fixable but that proved not to be the case.
While purging the tank with water to clean out remaining gas this wonderful waterfall appeared from the main rust hole. A few other pinholes were leaking as well. It wasn’t planned as usual but the search for a new tank began at my favourite vendors.
Once again the folks at British Parts Northwest came through. Perhaps the timing was perfect as well with a larger 16 gallon fuel tank on sale at a very reasonable price during their Black Friday sale. At least there will be one more item that doesn’t need attention when the 50 year old MGB is back on the road in the spring.
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