almost ready to coat
Boulder and Denver got hit by a good-sized snowstorm last night. The snowflakes were the size of my hand by about 1 or 2 am. I had left the gas tank outside, of course (I didn't want any fumes from the chemicals coming into the house through the garage), but it was under an overhang and didn't get too wet.
Once again, I got a late start on the gas tank, this time about 4 in the afternoon. I started by rinsing out the inside of the tank with four separate buckets of steaming hot water. The tank is extremely hard to empty of fluid completely, since neither the fill neck nor the gauge/fuel line hole are at the bottom of the tank in any orientation. In my 2nd box from POR-15, the one containing the Metal Ready, Marine Clean, POR-15, and primer, there was a manual on the use of all of these chemicals, as well as the gas tank sealer which I had purchased earlier. This would have been nice to get with the original order of gas tank sealer, etc., since the instructions were slightly different. These indicated that I should air-dry the tank for 24 hours before going at it with a hair dryer for 3-4 hours. Given this delay, I decided to spend the remaining few hours of sunlight finishing the outside of the tank.
I sealed the tank with aluminum tape to keep the dust and chemicals out of the tank, and finished going at the outside of the tank with Marine Clean, wire wheel, wire brush, and steel wool. The top and part of one side of the tank had been painted with the rest of the cab's interior, but the rest of the tank was just really really dirty. The wire wheel took off the paint, and I used the Marine Clean, wire brush, and steel wool on the hard-to-get spots as well as the dirt. The Marine Clean dissolved everything that wasn't metal on the tank. Very impressive, and today I was using it in a much more diluted solution than last weekend. I finished the cleaning of the outside by spraying it down with Marine Clean diluted to about 5:1 water:cleaner, wiping it with steel wool, and rinsing with a spray bottle of hot water.
The next step was to coat the outside of the tank with Metal Ready, which was applied with another spray bottle. I let it sit for about 15 minutes a side while taking my girlfriend's dog for a walk, then rinsed off the outside of the tank with a gallon of steaming hot water on each side.
Now it's sitting in the garage for a 24-hour drying period, after which I'll attach the hair dryer to it, and finally coat the inside, and then get to painting the outside with POR-15. Hopefully I can get this all done before I leave town for a few weeks on Friday, and hopefully we won't get another freak snowstorm like we did last night.

I'm putting the Metal Prep in the gas tank now, and I coated the outside of the tank with Marine Clean. That stuff's impressive.

Of course, I just noticed that Chevy Duty has a brand-new gas tank here for $140. Hm.

lather, rinse, repeat
Yesterday I did another run of the Marine Clean in Peanut's gas tank. I was smarter this time and started early (well, I consider 11:30 am to be early), which got me done by 11:30 pm. I also used some aluminum tape this time to seal the tank completely so that all of the Marine Clean stayed inside the tank at all orientations. When I poured it out, it looked rust-colored, with no visible dissolved goo or anything else. This means on to the next step -- de-rusting. This run is 1/2 hour on each side, which adds up to 3 hours total, after which I have to make the tank "bone dry." This will probably involve attaching a hair dryer to the fill neck of the tank with some more aluminum tape and running it for several hours, constantly checking to make sure nothing's on fire.
I just got my order from POR-15 today. I was surprised not to see any "hazardous material" markings on the boxes, although they did ship it UPS ground.

gas tank redux
I've decided to abandon the new-old fuel tank that I bought from the junkyard, and just use my existing tank. Buying the panel truck has put a new perspective on Peanut -- she will just be the daily driver she once was, instead of getting all fancy with things like the gas tank relocation. I will look one final time to see if I can mount the existing gas tank under the bed, but if that doesn't look too straightforward, it's going back in the cab after some serious cleaning. The replacement tank is too small, anyway.
I spent Sunday weatherproofing my girlfriend's fence, and used the time as well to start de-gunking the inside of the gas tank. I had previously purchased POR-15's gas tank kit, which includes de-gunking chemicals ("Marine Clean"), de-rusting chemicals, and sealer for the inside of the tank. The first run of the Marine Clean took about 12 hours (2 hours to a side, 6 sides on the tank), so it was a good thing I was up until 1:30 doing homework anyway. On the plus side, the Marine Clean wasn't too nasty-looking when I poured it out, so just one more run of the stuff should be enough.
I also just ordered a gallon each of Marine Clean, de-rust, POR-15, and primer from the POR-15 company (about $200). This will be used for the outside of the tank, as well as cleaning out the floor of the cab under the gas tank mounts. Not sure exactly how I'll drain the chemicals out of the cab, though -- I seem to remember there's a hole in the middle of that area, but I can't recall just now.