Flushing the fuel system

[culp]

I need to flush out the fuel system on my 1954 Series II.

Can anyone advise on a good method? Chemicals to use?

[PSL184]

Half a gallon of diesel to a full tank of fresh petrol....

[culp]

Erm half a gallon of diesel? You just put it in the tank?

My car's been off the road for 20 years and keeps stopping with fuel starvation, a quick suck on the pipe generally gets it going ,but I want to do a proper job and make sure I don't get any more problems.

[PSL184]

Yep, just put it in the tank - no more than that though or you will leave a smoke screen for miles....

[bmcecosse]

Clean the filter in the fuel pump. If it's more than that - you will need to take the tank out and clean it with pebbles and paraffin (or diesel) - but remove the tank level sender first!

[culp]

Clean the filter in the fuel pump. If it's more than that - you will need to take the tank out and clean it with pebbles and paraffin (or diesel) - but remove the tank level sender first!

It's not the fuel pump, I've cleaned that out.

Ok so remove the tank & sender, put in a half gallon of diesel and some pebbles, swill around, empty out, allow diesel to evaporate off, refit tank, hey presto? (sorry...I've never had to do this before)

[bmcecosse]

Someone recently had the idea of strapping the tank to a cement mixer to swirl it around! The problem may of course lie in the fuel supply pipe - consider a short trial run using a temporary tank and a feed to the fuel pump - just to make sure it runs ok like that, thus proving the problem is in the supply pipe or tank.

[culp]

Thanks everybody for the help

[pfgiz]

When I had issues I ended up changing the feed pipe while I cleaned the tank. It's less than £20 and worth every penny for the piece of mind, not had any fuel related problems since......

[ferret76]

When I had issues I ended up changing the feed pipe while I cleaned the tank. It's less than £20 and worth every penny for the piece of mind, not had any fuel related problems since......

How do you get the pipe out? I cleaned out my tank last week and had a hell of a time trying to squirt stuff through the tank sender hole onto the little gauze cage to get the crud off.

[bmcecosse]

I don't think you can.......but let's see if anyone has a method!

[pfgiz]

I was refering to the pipe between the tank and pump and not the pick up pipe within the tank. I found a swill arround was enough to remove any build up within the tank.

I've also heard that swilling it around with red-oxide mixed with petrol coats the inside of the tank to prevent rusting. Mine was very shiney so I didn't do that....