I can't believe you survived using heat on it, even if it hadn't had fuel in it for 30 years. Remember the oval fuel tanks on the old WC Allis tractors? We were using one for a gas tank in a stock car once when it developed a slight seep at the outlet fitting. I thought I could re-solder it. I filled the tank eompletely with water, drained it out, and filled it again leaving just a small pocket of air by the area I wanted to solder. I didn't get within a foot of it with a torch when it blew. I landed ten feet backwards inside my shop, against the front of the stock car, cut my leg, broke my torch, fractured my thumb, and made a flat piece of tin out of the tank. A year later, I found a spool of solder I'd intended to use, in a rain gutter on our house a hundred yards away. I joke about it now, but I was darned lucky I got it in the hand and leg instead of in the face. I now farm out any work on gas tanks. For one thing, my wife assured me I would once again be single if I ever worked on another gas tank, even if I lived to tell about it.
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