Morris Minor Owners Club

'56 Minor has been sitting around for about 25 years. The pump cannot suck petrol out of the tank. The pump works ok. The pipe in the tank seems to be blocked. Can someone describe what the pipe inside the tank looks like, and a solution ?

I suspect there was some fuel in the tank before it was abandoned and it has since turned to varnish. Unfortunately you can't remove the pickup pipe to clean it because it's welded in. I managed to unblock mine by removing the tank and using a small steam cleaner to pump steam into it for a couple of hours to soften the varnish, then I put a mixture of fresh petrol and gravel inside and swooshed it around to try to scrape the coating off the inside, before shaking all the gravel out and finally rinsing it out with some more petrol. There was a little mesh strainer on the bottom of the pickup pipe that was gummed up but the gravel treatment knocked a few holes in it.

Others have reported success just by putting fresh petrol in and leaving it for a few days, but that didn't have any effect when I tried it (the varnish seemed to be just as hard afterwards). I tried a few other strong solvents too and the only one that had any obvious effect was the steam.

I blew the filter in the tank with an airline from the fuel pump end, at about 60 psi the filter popped and every thing has been fine since. There is a filter in the fuel pump so there is no worry if the fuel tank one is ineffective.

The inside of the gas tank is fairly simple. As soon as the line meets the gas tank and angles down towards the bottom of the tank. It has a small fuel filter on the ende. The end of the line is situated in the center of the baffle.

Rogers method works best. Blow the old intank filter to bits with an airline. For a more lasting repair, steam clean the inside of the tank, allow to dry, and pour in some Frost Tank Sealer to lock any rust/crud and it will be fine.

A good trick i recently learned to clean the inside of petrol tanks is strap it to the front of a cement mixer with some clean petrol in it and a handfull or 5 of stainless steel nuts and bolts. Saves the sore arms.
cheers,michael.