Pete's cafe tank. The saga battle continues...
So, went out to the garage this morning and the JB Weld cured up nice and hard on the outside... and only on the outside.
The inside was a gooey, slobbery mess of grey snot. Remember how this current episode started? Yeah, a lacquer thinner slosh to get rid of the oil preservative on the inside. Well... as good as I (thought I'd) cleaned up that area, some of the oil must have remained in the metal and migrated into the JB Weld.
So... I poured a cup of thinner in there and sloshed it around. On the plus side it didn't spray everywhere with the hole gone...
Poured it out, let it dry, felt around in there and fingers still came out oily. This is odd as thinner is my go to solvent for removing grease and oil on parts I want to paint. Sloshed some more in there.... same result. I thew a stupid amount of sloshes in there and still the oil wouldn't budge. Holy crap.
Pete, ask your rock tumbler guy what kind of oil that is... I want some.
Drastic times call for drastic measures. Yup... hydrochloric acid. Dumped a half gallon in there, taped it up and sloshed it around for about a half an hour. Rinsed 'till the water ran clear and dried it out. That did it. Clean as a whistle now.
The first thinner slosh today immediately cleaned out the gooey epoxy mess. So I've put some more JB Weld in there. Will be cured by morning and hopefully we'll slosh in some primer.
Here's a tech tip: Remove your plugs from the petcock holes, switch your shopvac from suck to blow and stuff it down the filler. Forced air drying will have it dry before the flash rust can set in.
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