Plastic Gas Tank

Steve@Advance · Dec 1, 2016

I'm trying to get the fuel valve off of a plastic fuel tank. It's on a Honda Foreman 4 wheeler.

It is held on with 2 6mm bolts. It feels like the bolts are frozen/corroded in the nuts that are embedded in the plastic. I can feel the bolt/nut assemblies slightly turn when I try to remove them, but if I turn any harder, the nuts will break loose inside the tank and then I'll have a whole new set of problems!

I can grind the heads off, get the valve out of the way, but still not sure I can get the bolts out.

Can't heat them, can't beat them as the plastic just bounces. Got then soaking with penetrating oil.

Any other suggestions?

Thanks!

Gary from Muleshoe · Dec 1, 2016

Ever get the feeling it was designed to do that. Keep it soaking it should break loose but it may take a few days

ggb3 · Dec 1, 2016

Hi Mr. Steve,
A few years ago I had to pull all of that apart from ethanol/water damage, replace the screen and all in the tank. Mine turned in the plastic, a new tank was ~$400. I spun them in the plastic until they come out and then I could separate them. With a dremel and an end mill type of bit, I "cleaned up the holes, making them out of round in areas I had enough meat in the plastic (they do not go all the way through into the tank. I roughed up the areas inside with some striations, cleaned with acetone and epoxied the nuts back in. I let it cure for a couple / few days and reassembled. That was about 3 - 4 years ago and all seems well so far.

George

FBH44 · Dec 2, 2016

Do not know how you'd do this, but when I have bolts stuck, and I'm about to tear things apart, I try to use my air impact wrench, and gently set up, get a grip on things, and gently tap-tap-tap them, and sometimes that really helps get them apart. But as I say, dunno how you'd do it.

Hobo,NC · Dec 2, 2016

That's a tuff'N

I can tell you what I would do but its not gonna be of much help undless you have a

http://www.theinductor.com/induction-heating-products/mini-ductor/models/md-700-110v

Shoot it a few seconds and walk away from it till it cools repete as necessary.

Still of no help but those Asian Phillips screws are a P.I.T.A. I was shocked to find out they are different than a standard PHS. I brought a few screwdrivers just for them suckers...

http://www.vesseltools.com/hand-tools/screwdrivers/view-all-products.html

http://www.vesseltools.com/hand-tools/screwdrivers/impact/980-series/flypage.tpl.html

JML755 · Dec 2, 2016

Can you just cut a hole around them and replace with a plate/gasket on the tank that the valve attaches to? I've done that on several plastic items that for one reason or another had issues.

Plastic Gas Tank

Steve@Advance

Well-known Member

Gary from Muleshoe

Well-known Member

ggb3

Member

FBH44

Well-known Member

Hobo,NC

Well-known Member

JML755

Well-known Member

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