Captainkirk's Duster project

Well, that was certainly an eye-opener! Moving forward with my devious plan to get the bottom side finished prior to the onset of winter, I continued on my odyssey by pulling the fuel tank. I decided not to repeat last weeks folly of snapping off a bolt by not waiting long enough for the AeroKroil to do it's job. So I hosed down the offending appendages with said elixir and waited while I pondered the contents of several bottles of ice cold water. After holding the bolts down with Vise Grips, I was able to work the nuts to and fro until I felt they would walk off without binding and snapping the strap bolts. This time patience paid off, and the thirty-something year old nuts gave up their grip on time and slowly backed their way off until I had enough slack in the straps to unhook them. Testing the tank with my arm, I realized there must be several gallons of gas still in this thing. Visions of the tank tipping and spilling gas all over the trouble light made me realize I was in no hurry to do my Richard Pryor imitation, so I carefully raised up a piece of board on the floor jack to support the tank while I performed my shenanigans. Probably a wise choice. Realizing I needed to pull the filler neck, I popped the fuel cap to get at the screws and was promptly rewarded by the most unholy stench I've ever encountered on any vehicle, ever!!! The fuel in this tank must be, no kidding, at leat 25 years old. Once the filler neck was out, the stench permeated the garage. I was reluctant to open the door as the mosquitos were in a feeding frenzy, even inside the garage with the door shut! Ever so slowly and carefully, I lowered the tank with the jack until I could wheel the whole shebang out from under the car. Now I had one eye screwed shut, wincing from the ripe smell of stale gasoline. I couldn't stand it any more. I opened the door and carried the tank and filler out into the driveway. My first thought had been to dump the old gas on the weeds growing up through the gravel in the driveway. No way. It would reek for months to come and I'd catch hell from the wife. Next thought was to walk the tank out to the middle of out cul-de-sac and just dump it on the asphalt. Nobody would know where it came from, right? I even went so far as to duck-walk the tank out to the street before I realized that, hey, this stuff was just too toxic for a stunt like this. So I duck-walked it back and struck upon a brilliant idea; I had a five gallon bucket with a top on it. I grabbed a funnel from the garage and emptied the contents(???) into the bucket, holding my breath as best I could. In the light streaming out from the open garage door, I could see the nasty stuff, almost a creamy yellow, full of rust, water, and who knows what else. Just think; I was gonna try to START this thing a couple years ago??? I capped off the pail and stuck it by the fence, unsure what to do with it. I'll figure out something, eventually.
Crawling under the car, I was pleasantly surprised to see the area covered by the tank to be clean and rust-free. Almost like it just left the factory. Amazing; there's not much left here, really. Once the rear end's outta the way I oughta be able to clip through the remainder of this task like a gang mower on a golf course.