Resealing the Fuel Tank

The early 944s have a steel fuel tank and that fuel turns to varnish and water after sitting for 20+ years. The inside of the tank looked awful so I decided to pull it, reseal it, and replace all the hoses.

Here's the tank after pulling it.

I decided on the POR-15 line of products to clean and reseal the tank. It involves 3 steps.

1. Degrease the tank. This removes a lot of the varnish and grime within the tank.
2. Unfortunately even after doing this step twice the tank still had a varnish smell and flecks were visible. I brought out the big guns, muriatic acid. I diluted it 4:1 with water and sloshed it around. That really cleaned up the tank nicely.
3. The Metal Prep etches the tank which gives the sealer something to grip onto. Here's a picture after that step was complete.

4. The sealer is next. It's a thin epoxy-like liquid in which you need to coat every surface inside the tank with. I rotated the tank for about 10 minutes and then spent the next 30 minutes draining all the extra liquid out. The results look fantastic.

I bought new bulk braided fuel hose from Belmetric and cut it to length. Here's the tank ready to go back into the car.

There is also some foam near the filler neck that I attempted to replace. Unfortunately the adhesive I used wasn't strong enough and the foam ripped off the tank during installation. I ended up just stuffing some foam in after it was installed. Getting that tank back in was a chore and I had to eventually bring out a jack for some extra leverage to squeeze it in.