| Author | Message | ||
     Easy_rider |
I need to ship a tank, and there's a very little amount of residual fuel in it. I've taken the cap off thinking it will evaporate quickly. To ensure there aren't any problems, is there a suggested way to flush a tank? | ||
| Jramsey |
Hot soapy water and rinse. Quarter car wash nozzle stuck in the opening, a bucks worth of quarters should do it. | ||
| Barker |
dont let fedex find out you are shipping a gas tank. empty or not. DAMHIK. | ||
| Gjwinaus |
I have used fire crackers in the nearly empty fuel tank of an abandoned car when I was a kid, but that may not be appropriate this time | ||
| Easy_rider |
Something about water in a fuel tank is just hard for me to do... Thought I'd toss a match in after it aired out a couple days to make sure there was nothing flammable left in it, though! | ||
| Just_ziptab |
Air purge......friend on mine had a tank leak. Air purged it and welded the crack with a torch. Problem is, it takes and industrial quantity of air to remove all traces of gas. A leak blower probably isn't going to get it.....at least not quickly. | ||
| Oldog |
I presume a plastic fuel cell hot soapy water steel tank hot soapy water immeadeatly (sp) followed by a water soluble oil remove excess allow it to dry check for smell no smell GTG a lot of water soluble machining fluids have protectant properties, you could try light vegatable oil (Wesson) put maybe a cup of it in the tank and swish it around to coat the inside WD40 wont work, petrol will smell and may be flamable not kidding put it in a clean tin can and see what gas does to it if it dilutes it theres your answer, wash wesson ship. IHTH (Message edited by oldog on August 14, 2008) | ||
| Teeps |
Trying to do an end run around the regulations, if caught, will be very expensive. It's a Federal offense and the fines are in the tens of thousands of dollars. And, these days you might just find yourself locked up in GitMo. | ||
| Oldog |
why would an inert steel container be a problem? I dont disagree about shipping a tank that was full of flamable vapours. | ||
| Swampy |
The problem is that the fuel vapors are always present. Welding on fuel tanks lots of fun if it is not purged with a non-flamable gas while welding. I worked at a garage many years ago while some "Clowns" were welding an old Jeep gas tank that had a split in it. They had flushed it and filled it with water and were welding on it two bays away with a truck between us. I could hear them over in the other bay, its working, its working! VOOM!, ah %*##@, its working, its working, VOOM!, ah *&%$#. When they were done, they were all wet from the tank going off on them. A humorous way to explain why they they won't ship a gas tank. | ||
| Brinnutz |
light a match? | ||
| Easy_rider |
I'm not trying to get around regs, but presume that there is an appropriate way to clean and ship. This is a fuel cell. Any chance the guys at the garage were experiencing water vapor "exploding" out of the tank? | ||
| Spiderman |
I'd like to know as well I need to ship my tank out soon as well to get painted... | ||
| Kilroy |
Could this be a "don't ask - don't tell" exercise? I have received 2 tanks through UPS - no special packaging and I would bet the sender didn't take any special precautions other than cleaning and drying the tank. As long as you don't endanger anyone that will come in contact with your package during transit, you should be fine. Just use common sense and get it as fume free as you can. | ||
| Oldog |
 semi closed metal container + water + heat = BOILER!  What Kilroy said.... | ||
| Oldog |
I dont know this for a fact but I have been told that industrial amonia is a good cleaner, in that you are trying to clean a fuel cell (plastic) rust should not be an issue, hot soapy water and time to air dry should do it, also could you put the tank in a giant ziploc bag (space bag) and then in a box with packing ( no fumes that way, after a thurough cleaning ) | ||
| Djkaplan |
"Trying to do an end run around the regulations, if caught, will be very expensive." Hmm... then an unnamed BadWebber (it was Tim!) did a very bad thing when he shipped sent me an S1 tank. | ||
| Djkaplan |
"Any chance the guys at the garage were experiencing water vapor "exploding" out of the tank?" I've seen the aftermath of some hellacious tank explosions... water vapor won't blow a man ten feet from where he was welding from like the ignition of gasoline vapors. I've had to supervise the welding on diesel tanks after they've been used before... even though it was diesel, it was the scariest thing I've ever done on any job I've ever had. To say that we took precautions is an understatement. I would have scrapped the tanks if they had been filled with gasoline. (Message edited by djkaplan on August 15, 2008) | ||
| Teeps |
Oldog Posted on Friday, August 15, 2008 why would an inert steel container be a problem? If the fuel tank has never had fuel in it, that would be no problem. But as Swampy said fuel vapors are always present in a used tank. Here is a google search on shipping hazmat. http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&client=opera&rl s=en&hs=Uro&sa=X&oi=spell&resnum=0&ct=result&cd=1& q=shipping+Hazmat&spell=1 All I know is the shipping manager at work gets trained every year on Hazmat shipping. He takes the responsibility very seriously... and there are no shortcuts tolerated. | ||
| Guell |
Ive shipped a tank before no problems. They even knew what was in the box. Helped that the girl beind the counter was flirting with me that day. I probably could have shipped nuclear waste without a problem. | ||
| Igneroid |
Get some flex pipe and hook it up to the exhaust of your truck/car and put the other end in your tank. Idle your car/truck for about 15 miniutes and the majority of the vapors should be gone. You can gas weld fuel tanks with this method(while the donor vehilcle is idling) done it myself. The CO in exhaust does not support combustion... | ||
| Teeps |
Guell Posted on Friday, August 15, 2008 Ive shipped a tank before no problems. Yes, and "we" are all traffic scofflaws too. It's consequences that make the difference. | ||
| Djkaplan |
"Yes, and "we" are all traffic scofflaws too." Not me! And I also never lie. | ||
| Sarodude |
I've heard of guys running a car's exhaust into a fuel tank to clean out the flammables. It was a steel tank, but still an interesting idea. -Saro | ||
| Swampy |
I once took a diesel fuel tank to a welder to have it repaired fully expecting for him to fill and purge with an inert gas while welding on it, NOPE! He just hammered out a patch and stuck an arc! Diesel needs to be atomized before it will burn like gas. A friend of mine loves to come down in the middle of the night and start open coffee cans that are about half full of gasoline on fire, it gives off a nice warm yellow glow to the yard, and burns for quite a while. | ||
| Guell |
Yes, and "we" are all traffic scofflaws too. It's consequences that make the difference. Yea sure, but i told them what it was. And they put that down in the computer. If the people working behind the counter are stupid enough to not realize the regulations, then its off my chest Lots of tuber tanks are sold on ebay without problems, not saying its the right thing to do, but it happens. | ||
| Swampy |
Sorry, I don't know what that has to do with shipping a gas tank.... I would think the reason for the shipping restrictions are that the shipper has to prepare for airline shipping also which has crazy restrictions nowadays. In the old days I used to air out lots of racing engines on pallets and I don't remember having any restrictions. |
