I was hemming and hawing and about taking the tank out of the 71 I'm working on to see what's going on underneath it mostly. This car is so nice and rust free I didn't expect much problem but I needed to deal with plugging off the far left vent line anyway (evap tank delete) so out it comes. Chance to clean up all the bits and pieces back there and make it look all pretty.

So I'm undoing the fuel lines and notice something. Is this a bad thing?  Did something throw up on my gas tank?

how about this?

Or even this? That line that's blobbed in with silly putty is a replacement pickup. Check out what's in the end

 

Time to get a another tank and try again. Too bad, the inside is nice is clean, other than the varnish crystals.... 

if you get all that epoxy? cleaned off, soldering those fittings back on correctly is a cakewalk.

Or if you don't want to use heat to solder on a gas tank you could try an epoxy that is designed for gasoline exposure.

http://www.bellautomotive.com/Gas-Tank-Repair-Epoxy-p/22-5-00915-8.htm

I agree, I would resweat the pickup line in or use a sealant. It seemed to work pretty well as you didn't seem to have symptoms from the original patch. Clean tanks are getting harder to find...

I vote for the repair. I went thru a lot of trouble finding a new tank in Canada.

I absolutely agree its worth fixing. I haven't removed all the old epoxy to see just how bad the situation is, but even if I have to weld in a new plate that holds the two tubes, no biggy. We have the technology.

I'm just lucky I have spare tanks to use instead. Had to strip this one and put a deleted return line back in (which is a breeze to solder as noted above BTW) and do a wee bit of dent repair, but other wise lovely.  Here she is with a fresh coat of Chassis Saver.

That tank is an easy repair. My fuel tube was loose too...though not as disconnected as yours. I would remove the epoxy and send it to a radiator shop. They will re-solder the tubes, boil it out, and seal it if you want it sealed. Or, bring it home and treat and seal yourself.