I had a friend that does lots of welding try to weld shut some pin pricks in a
tank. He *SCRUBBED* the tanks clean with a bottle cleaning brush, Dawn, and hot
water - over, and over, and over. I witnessed the whole thing. When he lit the
torch a day later, the tank blew out, and after a recovery of a few minutes, he
welded the puppy shut. I was in disbelief!

I would have sworn that tank was the cleanest thing this side of Germany...I
would have drunk water out of it! After witnessing the tank almost blow up, and
all the time and effort he put into safeguarding that it was clean, clean, clean
... I say replace vs. risk bodily injury.

AB

Benjamin Tan wrote:

> Assuming a used tank has been emptied and air-dried completely for a week or
> so, what else can be done to make the tank safe to weld?
>
> My local used parts monger tosses out used gas tanks. Three from 2wd Vanagons
> this week alone. I was wondering if anyone had ever tried to cut a tank then
> lengthen it with parts from another tank to gain extra capacity.
>
> It was just a thought. I am aware that Winkler makes a higher capacity tank.
> The price is just a bit disagreeable.
>
> BenT