Leaky fuel tank. (1 Viewer)

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Joined
Dec 20, 2017
Threads
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Location
Columbia South Carolina and Cedar Mountain NC
Noticed small puddle under 1972 FJ40. Turns out to be fuel that is seeping from the fuel tank. Not leaking from drain plug, rather from around drain plug. Saturating the Line-X like coating done during a PO restoration. Drained the tank. Removed the seat, tank cover and tank and found rusty surface on side where it had been seeping. Underside of tank paint is bubbly and tank floor well saturated.
The tank doesn’t look that old. Why would it start rusting and seeping fuel ?

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Just ordered new one as soon as I removed it. Just wondering why when not that old?
Do you actually know how old the tank is? Ive seen many tanks look new and the bottoms appear to have surface rust, but in reality the rust is deep enuff to have small pin holes and seep fuel. It also looks like the coating or matt in the tank well doesnt allow moisture to drain. The tank well doesn't look stock. Its sides of the well imo, look to be too steep and the edges should be more rolled and there are no channels going towards the center hole. My 72 didnt use the later model sheet metal tank cover, instead it used 2 straps holding it down and had a bench seat and seat frame on the passenger side. I dont recall what the 72 well looks like, heres a pic of a 75's that uses the tank cover. I should be somewhat similar.
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...after paint removal..
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In beginning I want to fix it... but after cut the bottom... and try to cleaning ..
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I just get a new one from Cool Cruisers .. and I never comeback to such ida ..as fixing fuel tank..:)
 
That’s what I did. I guess I should cut out the bubbled liner. From what I can see it’s unpainted metal underneath. Should I leave bare or paint before installing tank or doesn’t matter?
 
I'd pull that bubbled up material, remove rust and treat it, clean it up and paint. That's what im currently doing to my floors. Im working on preservation, instead of cutting and replacing. My floors are pretty solid, with some small pitted issues around the hump hole. It depends how deep you want to dig into that rabbit hole. I think there should be rubber type strips placed around the edges of the well too. You might want to use the search funtion on what others have done.
 
It looks like someones already replaced your floors with sheetmetal.
 

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