Staycation and Liners

After an epic attempt to fix the small crack in the plastic fuel tank, I finally managed to weld a seal into the tank.

At Uptown Oil we filled the tank and the weld held nicely, with a completely dry area all around.

By the time I'd driven home the seal had failed and fuel was dripping out of the back of the plastic tank.

Quick as a flash I drove back to Uptown Oils and drained the tank. All this at 10pm the night before I was due to leave.

So I'm now still at home. The first part of the expedition is turning into a stay-cation, while I work out a solution.

The tank is thoroughly embedded in the bus and to remove it I'd have to cut it into pieces, and replacing it with another one is not an option. I'd have to take a window out, and event then I'm not sure I could fit it past the toilet cubicle.

I've welded it again, and then reinforced it with specialist body filler. The problem is the tank is made from Polyethylene, to which no adhesive will stick. I'm not convince my weld is good enough and that the filler will stick. While it might be OK for a while, I won't ever be confident in it and I don't want it to break on route where I don't have instant access to a reserve tank I can drain my fuel into.

So I can either replace it with a steel tank which will have to be fabricated in place, which is quite tricky and annoyingly means abandoning the mantra of using waste to build the bus. A steel tank would also be much heavier.

Alternatively I may be able to find a tank liner like a balloon that fits inside the tank to hold the fluid. There are a few companies that make bespoke liners which might be a solution.

As soon as it's done I'm off.