Fuel tank cleaning

Is this the old style radiator.. or a newer presurized one? Did you fill it completely full?

Soundguy

My fuel tank had lots of crud in it. Actually had an old seed stuck in the little feed pipe out of the tank that caused the gas to flow just as a dribble...the engine would idle great, but under load it needed more gas and wouldn't run. So, (if you don't want to do the job *right* which means taking off the tank) I'd suggest you take off the entire float bowl mechanism, catch the gas flowing out in some container. Flush out any loose crud with more gas until the tank looks clean and the gas flows out clean. Then clean out the float mechanism, make sure the screens are clean and intact (mine weren't). Replace the mechanism and you'll probably be in good shape.

I doubt the overheating is related to the gas. I'll bet if you clean out the fins of the radiator, it'll cool just fine. My radiator fins plug up with chaff anytime I mow fields that I've let go too long. If I ignore it, the radiator just gets more and more plugged with dirt and dust and eventually won't cool well. First couple of times it happened, I forgot about the previous times and went thru a full cooling system troubleshoot first (stupid waste of time) before I looked at the easy solution. Now I look there first. I'll almost bet that is the problem with the cooling.

good luck,
Tom A

I have heard that a radiator shop can chemically treat the inside of your tank. When I did my tank, I just got some big ol' gravels outta the driveway and dropped them in the tank and shook the dickens outta the tank until al the gravels came out. Then I took compressed air and blew out all the junk that the gravels knocked loose, and repeated the process several times. This is hard to do with the tank still in the tractor, but it really isn't that big of a deal to remove, just gotta make sure you get all the gas out!!!! Good luck, hope that helps--Rob