Sooty has passed the MoT, that’s three years running with no advisories. I did, however, have a lot of cutting out on the way to the MoT station and on the way back – this was despite fitting a new fuel pump to get rid of the fuel starvation problem.

Took the tank off yesterday and there’s some corrosion on the pick up pipe which is a allowing a small amount of air to get in. Despite the large crack (it’s only on the top surface) the hole must be pretty small because the only fuel stain was on the top of the tank which is out of sight.

The tank has had a good wire bushing all over with a brass wirebrush (steel may cause sparks) to get rid of the flaky surface rust. The fuel level sensor has been removed but two out of the five screws holding it down have snapped off.

To do: Fill the tank with water before attempting to drill out the remaining two screws – everyone knows not to weld an empty fuel tank but very few think about electric drills producing sparks. The crack in the feed pipe will be fixed with JB Weld and the whole tank rust treated then painted with Hammerite. Finally, the inside of the tank will be cleaned and sealed with a Frosts restoration product.

It’s the school holidays soon and normally the van doesn’t venture far at that time – plenty of opportunity to get these types of jobs done. While it’s off I will get a drawing made of the key dimensions with a view to making a new stainless steel tank over the winter.