Learn me - cleaning out a plastic fuel tank

Diagnosed a fuel pump failure on the new beater (91 G20 Auto). Pulled out the pump and was greeted by a gritty sandy substance in the little box the pump sits in. So.. Drained the tank and removed it from the car to clean it out. It's plastic, never cleaned out a plastic fuel tank before. Was thinking i'd get a gallon or two of oil eater to soak in it for a day or two then flush it out with water. Is there any other solvent that is plastic safe for doing this? There was some rust from the metal insert for the filler tube that I hit with a wire brush, not sure how to deal with keeping it from rusting in the future. Anyway TLDR.. Any suggestions?

Rinse wash repeat. Its plastic its not going to rust, you just want to rinse off everything else. If you worried about other things rusting, try electrolosis to coat it in zinc or copper or something

I always have just went in there with rags and mopped up the debris.

I used an air powered vacuum cleaner once on a box van tank that had what looked like sheetrock debris in it. The van's sides were sorta crumbling and he had been driving it without a gas cap for a while because he lost it. Very expensive gas cap, as the tank had so much crud in it that vibration and such made it eat a hole in the pickup sock, destroying the fuel pump.

Salt, ice cubes, toilet bowl cleaner. Swirl it around and rinse. Works fantastic on steel tanks as well. The salt and ice are the abrasive that cleans the goo. Salt and ice are great for cleaning coffee pots as well. They all dissolve in water and rinse away.

Knurled wrote: I always have just went in there with rags and mopped up the debris. I used an air powered vacuum cleaner once on a box van tank that had what looked like sheetrock debris in it. The van's sides were sorta crumbling and he had been driving it without a gas cap for a while because he lost it. Very expensive gas cap, as the tank had so much crud in it that vibration and such made it eat a hole in the pickup sock, destroying the fuel pump.

A bit of warning - vacuum cleaners can create quite a bit of static, so you'd want to take the normal fuel-related precautions to purge the tank completely of any fumes before vacuuming it out.

In reply to petegossett:

That is why we used an air powered vacuum cleaner. (I don't know where you'd buy one, we've had it forever, it's more or less just a wand with an air chuck meeting it tangentially. Bernoulli principle, just like a carburetor) Stood that tall tank up on end, hosed the tank with water from top to bottom to rinse all the debris down to the bottom, then vacuumed it out.

Automotive gas tanks, I can reach in with a rag and get to 90% of the tank either by hand or with the rag in some long needlenose pliers.

Every tank out there has some of that weird sandy grit in there, though. Looks an awful lot like rust particles but it doesn't attract to magnets. (Which would make cleaning the tank easy, just swirl a magnet around in there)

Knurled wrote: In reply to petegossett: That is why we used an air powered vacuum cleaner. (I don't know where you'd buy one, we've had it forever, it's more or less just a wand with an air chuck meeting it tangentially. Bernoulli principle, just like a carburetor) Stood that tall tank up on end, hosed the tank with water from top to bottom to rinse all the debris down to the bottom, then vacuumed it out. Automotive gas tanks, I can reach in with a rag and get to 90% of the tank either by hand or with the rag in some long needlenose pliers. Every tank out there has some of that weird sandy grit in there, though. Looks an awful lot like rust particles but it doesn't attract to magnets. (Which would make cleaning the tank easy, just swirl a magnet around in there)

That's exactly the stuff I'm seeing, I thought it was rust from the old fuel pump and sending unit that I replaced. I'll try the needle nose pliers truck, dump some good detergent in it (or toilet bowl cleaner if I have some around the house) and hose the tank down, rinse it out real good and let it air dry for a bit. Be a few days till I get the replacement pump anyway. Thanks everybody!