Starting an old engine ....

Yea, I'm with the bypass the gastank crowd. Disconnect the line running from the tank to the pump and put a hose into a gas can. TYou can always drop the tank later and clean it out with a gallon of muriatic acid and see if it cleans up!! Get it preoiled and you should be fine for an initial fire up. Then you can go down the line of things to get it running again, but don't be surprised if it starts to puff a little cloud due to the valve seals and such. Might hear a lot of clacking from sticky lifters too.

We just fired up a motor I transplanted in the Duster project i got going, and it blew quite a cloud of stuff, cleaning out both the motor and the system. Had a sticky lifter but after a couple minutes she settled into a nice roll. The motor has only been sitting for a year or so though, not 15!!! Good luck with the fireup!! Geof