Car is back! Picked it up this week and promptly took it apart again. The gas tanks are / were full of crap - we've been working on those all week. Flushing them with POR-15 degreaser (yes, this stuff does work) and then flushing them with water. Seems counter-intuitive to use water, but that's what everyone recommended, and it is working, since the solvent is indeed water-based. The tanks were replaced 40+ years ago with stainless steel tanks (thank goodness), so the job involves simply cleaning them, and not replacing them (as they had to do with the car that was restored in the UK - that one, they had to cut the tanks out of the wood and fiberglass body to replace them).
The tanks are full of the degreaser right now at this moment, and are almost 99% clean. I'll leave them full over the weekend and then flush again. I'll take some photos, I have before and after, and the difference is quite amazing. We used a "throwaway" carburetor fuel pump to pump the contaminated junk out. The pump is not sounding too good nowadays as we weren't able to use a filter (it kept getting clogged because there was so much stuff). Doesn't matter, the pump was considered "expendable" anyways.
Next is to replace the shocks while we're waiting for the tanks to clean out. Of course they are ancient SPAX shocks which don't appear to be made any more, and I don't think anyone is rebuilding one. So, last night I pulled one, and I will see what we can do with finding NOS ones, or a similar replacement that maintains the period-correct look.
Cheers!
-Wayne
Here's the car as we're picking it up from the Los Angeles Petersen Car Museum:
Back at the Dempsey Motorsports garage:
Stripped down again and flushing the tank:
Everything taken out of it again:
Front view, flushing the tank:
Seats, etc.
Inadvertent selfie while trying to take a picture of the SPAX shock part number:
In with the hose, and out the other end:
The POR-15 Solvent doing it's job:
Proof of the POR-15 solvent doing it's job!
