New to me deere 160, tank has rust and crap in it. Only has 3/8 drain plug. Any ideas how clean a tank? I drained it and poured 5 gal back in it. Still a lot of residue. I came up with 3 options 1, buy new tank(no price quote yet) 2. Shop vac it out, won't get everything out. 3. Plasma an inspection hatch in top, weld it back together or bolt it on. Any other ideas?
We had a machine that this had happened to as well.my We drained tank, took a steamer and washed the inside of the tank, took a long blowgun and got the majority of the water out. Filled with fuel, let sit overnight, drained water off the next morning. Forgot about it until that evening, drained a bit more water out. The next morning, seemed to be no more water, but decided to give it one more day. The following morning, bled system, fired up, never had a problem since. On edit: It is important to get the tank filled with fuel after washing out. If you let it set empty, even for a few hours, rust will be forming inside before it's even dry. That's the beauty of water and fuel. The water will end up at the bottom.
i just had this same problem with my 120C. I used a shop-vac with a piece of 1" poly pipe. The pipe has a natural bend to it, but is still rigid. I was able to reach into the back corners scraping the bottom the whole time. It took some time but was way easier than replacing the tank.
I still won't be able to get all the crud out. Only have a small hole to get it out
If there's that much, you might need to vacuum most of it out. My 9030 I worked on had a ¾" hole in bottom of tank.
Treemover, I have an old Galion road grader which I have had for several years. It has a 15 gal steel tank. There was sediment on the bottom and rust all around. I took the tank off so I could easily pour out the fill spout. I used vinegar, acetone, acid, and rolled nuts and bolts inside and still it was not clean. There are several coatings on the market which are used to coat the inside of fuel tanks. Apparently, someone had coated the tank without thoroughly cleaning first. If I have to do it again I would take it to a radiator shop and have them put it in an acid bath. I spent nearly a $100 in cleaners and they would done a much better job for $150 and no labor on my part. Just my experience, fighting a commercial coating on top of rust. Good luck.