Restoring the Rad & Gas Tank,

The past few months have been relatively quiet as far as my BN1 restoration. I've been keeping busy with the upholstery world and not much else to do on the car as I wait for the next steps to unfold...

In October I sent the Rad and the gas tank to Townside Auto Repair to have them properly washed out in their hot tank, I also had the rad core checked and pressure tested.

Last week I brought home the freshly cleaned units and set about sealing the gas tank and painting them gloss black...

To seal the gas tank, I decided to use Por15 gas Tank sealer.
The inside of the tank had been cleaned to bare metal after 4 days in the Townside hot tank. All the old rust and crud was gone, so I waited another week to let it thoroughly dry out.

I readied the tank with some plugs and duct tape to cover all the holes, and wearing gloves and a respirator, I poured the Por15 in through the 2 main holes on top of the tank.
Then I quickly sealed the holes and slowly and thoroughly rotated the tank in all directions to try and get all of the inner walls and chambers evenly coated.
This process or rotation took about 2 hrs, as I would let it sit on every tank face for about half an hour before turning to the next face and then rotate it back the other way...

After a few hours of rotations, I rolled the tank upside down over some large bins and opened the big holes to let the any excess drain out. I'll let it dry now with all the holes open for the next several months until it's time to fill it up for the first time...

In the meantime, I also gave the outside of the tank a coat of black primer followed by 2 coats of gloss black paint.

Meanwhile, the body and chassis are still being worked in preparation for paint at Jetstream.  - As their upholstery guy I can attest they've been extremely busy with many exciting classic car  projects on the go lately,  in fact my Healey is just one of  5 Healey's they have on the go there currently!
- plus a half dozen or so other British and American classic restorations. It's nice to be a part of bringing so many great cars back to life!

Here's what my car looks like currently:

We've got the shrouds, fenders, and now the doors mounted up and lining up properly.
Now we just need to adjust the bonnet and boot lid fit to be perfect before we take the body all apart again and paint all the inner chassis and inner body panels.

Until next time -