Orange GS - the emotional roller coaster of excitement and disappointment.

A

andrewj

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Fellow Frogger
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Finally got the orange GS registered to today - woohoo:dance:

But...on the way back from the inspection it conked out due to fuel starvation. Was able to suck some fuel through manually with the squeeze bulb and limped home 500m at a time.

Popped the line from the fuel tank to the fuel filter off and a heap of watery, rust crap drained out:
rust.jpg


So what to do? there is no drain plug in the tank. So do I take the tank out and slosh it out? Siphon the gunk out from the top? Or just empty the filter regularly and hope there is not too much muck in there?

Cheers,
Andrew
 
I removed the filter and used an electric pump to empty the tank, and then refilled. Touch wood its been fine since then
 
Wow congratulations a beautiful orange GS rock and roll in Tassie! Are sure about drain plug? I have one on my hybrid, I have drain all the old dirty petrol and flush until became clear and put a new filter as well. Hope to see you and the car next month at Bastille day.(y):)

Cheers,
Davide
 
davidetas said:
Wow congratulations a beautiful orange GS rock and roll in Tassie! Are sure about drain plug? I have one on my hybrid, I have drain all the old dirty petrol and flush until became clear and put a new filter as well. Hope to see you and the car next month at Bastille day.(y):)

Cheers,
Davide
Click to expand...
Ok, definitely jinxed my self with the last post.

Set up an electric pump as per AxGT's suggestion, and ran a few litres of fuel through a filter and back into the tank - minimal sign of rust or contamination - looking good. Replaced the fuel line from the tank and moved the fuel filter to the engine bay, so it could be replaced on the road - just in case.

So off for a test run. Ran ok for the first few kms, then got a bit asthmatic so to speak. Pushed on, but no improvement, so I turned around. Going down a hill the engine stopped entirely and wouldn't start.

Swapped the fuel filter, but no improvement. Cracked the infeed to the carbie and it was jammed full of hard black particles- I'm guessing the fuel system cleaner cause a whole heap of rotten rubber in the hoses forward of the filter to release. Lifted the top of the carbie and there is a bit of rust powder and a few rubber particles, including the secondary jet. Cleaned it all out but no joy - guessing something has worked past the jet and into the primary circuit. Idle circuit was already blocked.

So onto the back of a tow truck, and now I know what I am doing this weekend!
Davide, there is definitely no plug on the fuel tank - probably a latter model than yours. Definitely will be at Bastille Day - see you there :cheers:

Cheers,
Andrew
 
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The joys of returning to the road after a long dormancy.
At least you’re doing better than some of my friends whose returned-after-dormancy-GS Pallas went up in smoke with a split fuel hose on one of their initial runs.
 
Not sure if this is going to help when the crud is so visible, but on some of my old Fuego's that had been resurrected, when things got lumpy in the webber carb, pulling the rubber hose thingy off the top of the carb, revving the engine and then quickly putting my hand on top of the carb totally blocking any air flow could sometimes allow the low pressure to suck the contaminant past its point of obstruction.
I don't know if this is even possible with your engine layout but worth a try if it is possible.
Might mean the difference between limping home or riding on a truck.

Jo
 
Bruce H said:
The joys of returning to the road after a long dormancy.
At least you’re doing better than some of my friends whose returned-after-dormancy-GS Pallas went up in smoke with a split fuel hose on one of their initial runs.
Click to expand...
If mine ever gets going it'll have an extinguisher handy! Or a new fuel hose...
 
andrewj - the bottom of page 10 and onto page 11 describe my internal rusty tank (some tanks have drain plugs and others don't - I know because I have both types)
https://www.aussiefrogs.com/forum/index.php?threads/gs-break-purchase.103291/page-10

You kindly provided me a tank when the KBS Tank Sealer Kit was not successful (remember Andie brought it over to the mainland?)

Let me know if I can assist.

There is a bloke up the road who splits tanks and lead lines them for about 300 smackers

Nice to hear you got your break on the road
 
you're going to have to pull that tank out ... one of those youtube shows had a good idea. Use your pressure washer and feed the spayer in around all the baffles and blast anything off the walls with hundreds of PSI of water :) .....

I'm not sure how to stop it rusting again once you have cleaned it though. I'm not sure how good the fuel tank coatings are you can buy (would they delaminate and clogs the filters worse than rust ?).

seeya,
Shane L.
 
Ok, spend all day today trying to get this sorted.

Stripped the carbie and gave it a good clean. I think I've managed to get all the black crud out of the line also, and remove the fuel bulb, as there seemed to be a lot of muck lurking in there.

Also worked out that there was no spark. So yes, one of those rare occasions where the fuel system and ignition system stuffed up within minutes of each other :rolleyes: :rolleyes: :rolleyes: .

Suspected the capacitor, so put in a brand new dizzy, just because I had one on the shelf :cool::cool::cool:. Still no sparked, despite 12 V to the coil. So replace the coil also - still no spark. Finally ran a separate wire from the battery to the coil, and the engine coughed into life. So looks like I have a high resistance connection somewhere in the lv side of the ignition wiring. Anyhow, the bypass wire will do the trick for now.

Drained the tank with the electric fuel pump - it came out cloudy and rusty. Put another 10l of clean fuel in and it came out clean. Every was running fine, and engine pick up faster from idle and it seem the second barrel was kicking in. So off for a test drive :)

Car was running much better and was revving and accelerating like a GS should ... for about 3km. Power started dropping off and eventual came to a halt, with the engine just managing to idle. Lifted the bonnet and found the fuel filter full of rust powered again. Sloshed it out and and put it back together. Started up, and got about 500m before it clogged again. Had to repeat the operation 5 time to get home, but atleast avoided a ride on the tow truck this time!

Right, so out with the tank to see what's going on. Removing the tank was quite painless, as none of the bolts or fittings where rusty. Empty the tank out and got huge amounts of rusty powder and big flakes of rust. Not looking good. After draining the petrol out, I hit it with a pressure washer, and even more rust came out, and a couple of holes emerged in the bottom of the tank - bugger - new tank required.

So next few hours where spent groveling in the cold Tasmanian winter mud to extract a tank from a spares car. Drained out the horrible, varnishy 10y petrol, and so far so good - no sign of rust. By this time it was dark, so will extract the fuel guage sender and look in side tomorrow. Geez, what an epic!

Any ideas on how to dispose of 20l or so of rusty, stale fuel????

Cheers,
Andrew
 
andrewj said:
Ok, spend all day today trying to get this sorted.

Stripped the carbie and gave it a good clean. I think I've managed to get all the black crud out of the line also, and remove the fuel bulb, as there seemed to be a lot of muck lurking in there.

Also worked out that there was no spark. So yes, one of those rare occasions where the fuel system and ignition system stuffed up within minutes of each other :rolleyes: :rolleyes: :rolleyes: .

Suspected the capacitor, so put in a brand new dizzy, just because I had one on the shelf :cool::cool::cool:. Still no sparked, despite 12 V to the coil. So replace the coil also - still no spark. Finally ran a separate wire from the battery to the coil, and the engine coughed into life. So looks like I have a high resistance connection somewhere in the lv side of the ignition wiring. Anyhow, the bypass wire will do the trick for now.

Drained the tank with the electric fuel pump - it came out cloudy and rusty. Put another 10l of clean fuel in and it came out clean. Every was running fine, and engine pick up faster from idle and it seem the second barrel was kicking in. So off for a test drive :)

Car was running much better and was revving and accelerating like a GS should ... for about 3km. Power started dropping off and eventual came to a halt, with the engine just managing to idle. Lifted the bonnet and found the fuel filter full of rust powered again. Sloshed it out and and put it back together. Started up, and got about 500m before it clogged again. Had to repeat the operation 5 time to get home, but atleast avoided a ride on the tow truck this time!

Right, so out with the tank to see what's going on. Removing the tank was quite painless, as none of the bolts or fittings where rusty. Empty the tank out and got huge amounts of rusty powder and big flakes of rust. Not looking good. After draining the petrol out, I hit it with a pressure washer, and even more rust came out, and a couple of holes emerged in the bottom of the tank - bugger - new tank required.

So next few hours where spent groveling in the cold Tasmanian winter mud to extract a tank from a spares car. Drained out the horrible, varnishy 10y petrol, and so far so good - no sign of rust. By this time it was dark, so will extract the fuel guage sender and look in side tomorrow. Geez, what an epic!

Any ideas on how to dispose of 20l or so of rusty, stale fuel????

Cheers,
Andrew
Click to expand...
give all the glass fuses wiggle and clean and see if you suddenly have spark. those old fuse boxes can become intermittent :)
 
andrewj said:
...

Any ideas on how to dispose of 20l or so of rusty, stale fuel????

Cheers,
Andrew
Click to expand...
I'd use some as weed killer around the outside of my shed and keep the rest for washing parts.
 
There was a thread on this somewhere. Some of the tanks were brilliant and others got rusty (inside). The one you sent up to me look like galvanised inside. Luck of the draw, or whoever was the manufacture & their technique at the time

Hope you enjoyed the case of Naked Wines I got shipped to you.
 
Hi Sparky,

Can't believe it was over 6 years ago when you where putting your machine back on the road! And yes, the wine went down very well, from what I can remember from that long ago. Is the wagon still going strong?

Pushed on today with the tank out of a '78 model sedan. First a slosh out with new petrol, followed by pressure wash, degreaser, more pressure wash. Slosh with concentrated phosphoric acid, left for a few hrs, now soaking over night with dilute phosporic acid.

Quite a bit of rust came out, but nothing like the old one, and no sign of pitting or flaking. So hopefully back on track!

So what to do next? I'm temped to put it together, get going and keep an eye on the fuel filter. I'm cautious about sealers, as there will be no turning back once that stuff is in the tank.

Cheers,
Andrew
 
Ok, a quick update.

Everything looked great inside the tank. A few patches of clean metal, presumeable between black original sealant - wrong!

I poked a screw driver in, and it turns out the bottom of the tank is caked with solidified rust powder, glued together with gone off fuel (stinks of varnish once scrapped off).

So dropped some 20mm clean in, and rumbled it back and forward. Horrible varnish smelling rusty drained out - not good.
Found a local tank repair place that was happy to acid dip - thanks to a recommendation, but the guru is off work for a few weeks - so too late for Bastille Day!

So I'm trying the electrolysis approach
tank electrolysis.jpg


- an old "dumb" 4A battery charger, with heavy tie wire poked down perforated pvc tubing. It's currently drawing 900mA, so could be a bit of a slow process.

Can any one spot the deliberate error in the photo?


Cheers,
Andrew
 
andrewj said:
Finally got the orange GS registered to today - woohoo:dance:

But...on the way back from the inspection it conked out due to fuel starvation. Was able to suck some fuel through manually with the squeeze bulb and limped home 500m at a time.

Popped the line from the fuel tank to the fuel filter off and a heap of watery, rust crap drained out:
View attachment 133856

So what to do? there is no drain plug in the tank. So do I take the tank out and slosh it out? Siphon the gunk out from the top? Or just empty the filter regularly and hope there is not too much muck in there?

Cheers,
Andrew
Click to expand...
 
Well Andrew
First - the GS is looking great
Second - you have my complete sympathy…
the tank in my DS was much worse -dispersing all manner of rusty detritus through the EFI system resulting in a break down on a hill on the Calder near Castlemaine.
The fuel after the filter at the injectors looked like tea !
I have resorted to replacing the tank etc
It had rusted and delaminated.
I’ll post a photo when I can resize
Good luck
Keep posting.
Ramon
 
ramonm said:
Well Andrew
First - the GS is looking great
Second - you have my complete sympathy…
the tank in my DS was much worse -dispersing all manner of rusty detritus through the EFI system resulting in a break down on a hill on the Calder near Castlemaine.
The fuel after the filter at the injectors looked like tea !
I have resorted to replacing the tank etc
It had rusted and delaminated.
I’ll post a photo when I can resize
Good luck
Keep posting.
Ramon
Click to expand...
Hi Ramon,

Thankyou for the sympathy and encouragement - it is certainly a frustrating situation, but I'm determine to get to get it sorted.

Overnight the tie wire anodes did eat away quite a bit, so something is definitely happening in there! This morning's experiment was to replace the tie wire anodes with a piece of steel tube from an old gate. Current is up from 900mA to 1500mA. I was hoping for better given the large surface area. So this afternoon's task is to hook up a 19V old computer power supply and see if I drive a bit more current through.
tank2.jpg

Question for the brains trust: Has anyone found a simple and reliable recipe for electrolyic Zinc plating? I'm hoping it is as simple as dropping a zinc anode into a buffered solution and applying some volts. But for some reason web searches come up with all kinds of complexity and suggests that there is some kind of black magic involved. Surely it can't be that complicated?

Cheers,
Andrew
 
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