Hello all.
I am restoring the car and decided to test the fuel tank before refitting it. The outer tank looked to be in good condition and is the type with the pilot fuel tank housed inside the rear kerosene tank . The Kerosene tank was filled with water and and the pilot tank pressurised with 40 lb air pressure. I found air bubbling out of the water at the main tank filler, and water leaking from the centre joint between the two halves of the main tank.
For further investigation I stripped off the paint from the main tank, around the joint using a blow lamp The metal looks in good order, galvanised steel or tin plate ? The case joint filling material readily melted, it was warm, not particularly hot. I suspect it may be "lead loading" - a low melt body joint filler.
Is this the material originally used by Stanley ?
To be noted that this joint must withstand all the loads resulting from a full tank of fuel!
It looks to be very difficult to remove the inner tank for repair . I suppose the soft option is to simply abandon it and fit a separate tank, a pity. I would like your thoughts and to hear from anyone who has successfully sorted these problems.
This is a first post, can I take the opportunity to thank all the contributors. All the very best, John Waynham.

John,

Don't know about Stanley fuel tanks but in the UK such tanks were often made from lead coated steel known as Manchester Plate or Tern Plate. Corrosion resistant and easily soldered.

Be a bit careful with your blowtorch - there may be petrol vapour around from the pilot tank!

As you have a leak from the pilot tank seems to me you will have to take the main tank apart to get to it and maybe a specialist radiator repairer would be a good choice.

Mike

While in Florida this past winter I visited a friend building a new tank for his 1913. He took his old tank completely apart. I would fill it with nitrogen before putting a torch to it. The tank was soft soldered together and made from .032 sheet steel. Two sets of dies were made to form press the end plates both for the outer tank as well as the inner tank. On this tank one end of the inner tank sticks out through the end of the outer tank. It looked like a very time consuming job to machine the dies.
My own fuel tank for my EX is made from copper. I used .050 sheet. I took an exception and made the end plates with a rolled in seam. The outer sheet of the tank is rolled around and into the end plates giving a very strong joint. I also installed a center divider slosh plate. The tank was hydro to three PSI for a leak check.
See attachment.

Rolly

John Kieper of Portland just made a new tank for his 1919 Stanley 735B. The old one was full if crude and it was marginal. He easily rolled the new shell for the new tank. I use CO2 for filling the tanks to be welded on. I have CO2 in fire extinguishers and also in my MIG welder tanks. I once had a brand new tank that I was welding on blow up from the accumulation of unburnt acetlyene gas from my welding torch. I was about done welding on it and it blew bother ends out like cannon balls out of a cannon. They missed me.

I rebuilt the tanks in my 1919 that is configured the same with the pilot tank inside of the main fuel tank. The outer tank is soldered with soft solder. The filler neck is attached with soft solder as well. Actually all of the tanks joints were made up with soft solder. Following safety precautions, made sure that both tanks were emptied of fluid and set the tank in the hot sun with filler caps off and gages out for several days to allow any residual liquid to vaporize. I then suspended the tank from the filler neck. This placed the open part of the seam so that it was oriented down. I also suspended the tank over a mound of sand. I established a purge of nitrogen on the main tank, it doesn’t need to be much, just above atmospheric pressure.
I started heating the seam on the main tank until the solder started to flow.
I struck (so as not to dent the tank) with a dead blow hammer which assisted in the removal of the solder from the seam. It appeared that a lot of the lead in the solder had oxidized and was probably the cause of leakage. Working my way around and around the tank it eventually separated and the lower half dropped onto the sand pile. One needs to pay attention not to get the area of the tank around the filler neck too hot or your set up will fall apart. In retrospect I would have wrapped the filler neck with a wet rag while separating the two tank halves.
Once the main tank is separated the inner tank can be accessed. The ‘supply’ and ‘return’ fuel lines to the inner tank are also soldered to the outer tank shell. They have nuts on them to mechanically attach and hold the tank in place. Heating the tank to the temperature that the solder would flow and then turning the nuts allowed for removal of them. The filler fitting on the inner tank is also soldered on the outer tank. This area was heated and again the tank tapped with a dead blow to remove the solder. Fittings for the fuel gage were treated in the same manner for removal. The filler neck was removed as well. Make sure that you index the fixtures prior to removal.
I then took all of the components to the plating shop that I use, less the inner pilot tank. It was constructed of brass and inspected and pressure tested OK once removed. I had them chemically strip the tank and components. The outer tank shell was pitted but certainly usable. I performed basic metal straightening. They then performed a heavy copper electroplating on the tank shell. I suspect there was at least 5 to 7 mills of plating. They then nickel plated the tank interior.
In the mean time I performed cleaning of the pilot tank and made up all joints with 45% silver. I had a long discussion with myself and determined that I did not want leaks and that 45% silver joints could be disassembled if necessary. I have installed many a refrigeration system and have performed many a silver brazed joint which is to my advantage for this project. I then re-installed the pilot tank, gage fittings, etc, into the outer tank shell. I affixed everything on this re-assembly with 45% silver and it made for a nice fit-up of the pilot tank filler.
I re-assembled the two tank halves and made up the seam with 95-5 soft solder, it is on the ‘hard’ end of the soft solders available and it tinned and flowed well on the copper plated surfaces! The filler neck is brass and I affixed it to the tank with 45% silver, having established a purge in the main tank while performing the work. The main tank was pressurized for leak check. I then performed lead work to fix surface blemishes. Primed and painted the tank using urethane materials.
I hope that this had provided you with some information and helps you determine an avenue and path forward for your tank repair.

Foot note: for disassembly a propane Turbo-Torch (brand name) torch set-up was used.
Oxy-acetylene torch used for all silver brazing. Harris brand silver and Stay-Silv white flux.
Same turbo torch was used for soft solder re-assembly.

Let me know if you have questions or anything is unclear in my description. It can be done.

Larry

Hello all,.
Thank you for the replies and concern for my well-being whilst assailing a fuel tank with a blow lamp. Can I say in my defence that I had given it some thought. I'm confident the tank had not seen fuel for the best part of 40 years. This is an exceptionally original and previously unrestored car. I had a good poke around inside the tank and could not locate any crud adhering to the sides. The tank had been well flushed through with water. However in hindsight purging with an inert or shielding gas would have been preferable.
Mike,
Thank you, lead coated steel is a new one on me.
Rolly,
your E X tank looks neat, incidentally I'm building your "Rolly gauge", hopefully an A C version (my son is good at electronics).
My dad was brazing a patch from a truck diesel tank using oxyacetylene and this went "pop". It split a steam. In retrospect maybe this was the build up of unburnt fuel gas from the welder torch. He had successfully performed this operation before but following the bang refused any such further work !
Larry I take considerable encouragement from the description of your work. If my tank is rusted then it must be from the inside out as the outside looks like a new and is completely dent free. I am surprised you found the inner tank to be brass, I had expected steel. This based on the fact that Bob Wilhelm's separate pilot fuel tank was steel. He needed to replace it and used a modified truck air tank
I am aware of the argument for the replacing of the brass accumerlater air tanks as they are prone to stress cracking from pressure cycles during operation, and I suspect simply through old age! Maybe this has happened to mine? I haven't noticed in the forum many reports of failures with pilot tanks and had assumed owners chose to rework the tanks more of a precautionary measure than from absolute necessity.
In any event the next stage is to split the main tank for further investigation. I propose to experiment and attempt straightening out an electric cooker hot ring element, wrap it around the joint in the hope that it will localise the heating to where it is needed. Yes I will earth the tank ! Failing this Plan B will be a team of torch wielding helpers with the tank and suspended from a tree !
I have some questions and assumptions.
I presume your outer tank was also a made from a similar lead plated steel as Mike suggests ?
The chemical stripping of the outer tank presumably to remove the lead coating before the heavy copperplate was applied ?
The final internal coating of nickel was carried out because it is less reactive than copper and subsequently this will help prevent electrolytic corrosion?
I was taught that soft soldered joints have poor mechanical strength and in this respect a silver soldered (silver brazed) joint is in all ways superior. Also that the integrity of a silver soldered joint is impaired if contaminated by soft solder. Certainly I agree that silver solder for the inner tank has many advantages, not least that it is unlikely to fall apart during the subsequent soft soldering reassembly to and closure of the main tank. Hopefully when my tank is separated this will reveal what I am up against. I will report my progress but you may see the tank in orbit.
Again many thanks, John.

Hi,,,Check the book on this detail,,,,My memory says that the pressure bottle joint,,overlap of 6x the thickness of the can, is equal to the can strength,,so that joint in solft solder is a lot stronger than the can,,Cheers,,Ben

John,
The main (outer) fuel tank was rusted from the inside out. It was also allowed to sit with old gasoline that had turned to varnish. The soldered seam was also leaking.
Yes, the material of construction of the main tank was lead/tin coated steel.
The chemical stripping was to remove all the lead as well as to make sure that all rust was removed for plating. This also allowed for a good inspection of the substrate material.
Yes, the nickel plating was deemed to be a better material selection for corrosion. As I recall the plating shop applied a 'cold process' that they stated would approach the corrosion resistance characteristics of 'stainless steel.'
I chose to re-assemble the main tank with soft solder if it became necessary to disassemble the tank at some point in the future. Making this joint with silver pretty much makes disassembly impossible. Intuition tells me that the soft soldered joint strength is sufficient as a lot of tanks were in trouble free service for many years that were made up with soft solder.
I hope that this answers your questions as well as helps you understand my thought and decision process.
Good luck with your project and may the outcome be successful regardless of how you approach it.

Larry

Hello Larry
Yesterday evening I had another little play with the main tank joint. (flooded both tanks with mig shielding gas first). The centre jointing material melts easier than any soft solder I've ever used before. You can just about touch the metal within one inch of the joint without getting fingers burnt. Maybe this is a repair or the joint initially soft soldered joint tidied up with lead loading on top. The gap in the overlap fit up varies from nothing to 3/16 inch max.
Regarding your tank restoration sounds like the Plater used what we know as the "electroless nickel" process to internally top coat the main tank. This all makes very good sense and is the path I will endeavour to follow.

I bought this car following the demise of gentleman who owned a small collection. It had a void under the bonnet, where he the boiler and its ancillaries had been. I managed to source the necessary automatics and have a new Burden boiler. I simply assumed that the car was taken off the road following the boilers demise. Up to now, during the mechanical restoration, I found plenty to sort but not a better reason for the car to be out of commission. With hindsight I was a little naive but to think I would be able to simply test and refit the tank . This particular job will certainly tax my skills to the limit.
Again many thanks
John.