plastic welder for gas tanks

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rbkt65

rbkt65

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does anyone have/use one for this operation? was thinking about removing a section of a plastic tank that has a screw on top and adding it to an tank that has a fuel pump module held in with a screw type clamp. 88-90 dodge trucks have module held in with screw clamp, 91 up have screw on top holding module in. what is best/most reasonable one out there to do what i want to do?
 
How about searching photos on Google and posting something like you are talking about
 
here are 2 i found but looking for advice/real world experience.
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If you are considering splicing a piece of one plastic tank to another plastic tank. I would not recommend it.

Also some plastics are thermal set vs. thermal plastic

I don't know if you can weld a thermal set plastic.

Could you lap joint and pop rivet the piece on, with an appropriate sealer?
 
I believe that I know what you are talking about. I have an 83 D150 and swapped that gas tank out for one from a 91 that had the in tank electric fuel pump. Sounds like you are wanting to swap the later module pump / level sensor module on to an earlier tank.
You probably could do that with a plastic welder, but what I would do is cut out the module twist on cap area, making it large enough to overlap a good portion of the existing tank, then glue and screw the two together.
Or, just put the newer tank in place of the existing tank.
If this is what you are doing be advised the fuel level sensor operates on a different ohm range, I also swapped in the newer gauge cluster,
If this is not what you are doing, I apologize for this response.
 
that is what i was talking about. with the short bed early trucks to 1987 and using a 518 od, there sometimes is not room for a 30 gallon tank. if you can find the 20 gallon tanks up to 87 and if you can find a 91-93 22 gallon tanks that would be great. a lot of 88-90 tanks out there but fuel pump modules are scarce as hens teeth. if you could scab at screw on top to an 88-90 tank ans it would seal, it would be great. not sure what you would use to seal the 2 together.
 
My friend has several of the 88-90 modules and a variety of fuel tanks if it would help, but they do demand a premium. I'm in process of shipping a SWB '76-'82 fuel tank but they take a while (it's really more aggravation than its worth to get one swabbed out clean enough to ship) to get ready to ship and shipping runs between $75 to $100 after the two week wait to make it shippable.
 
Look up plastic fuel tank repair kit. I got mine from AutoZone.My 88 D 350 fuel tank had a split on top that I repaired with the kit.You may be able to use the kit to mold the new part to the old.
 
Don't waste your time trying to fix it. The type of plastic used in those tanks was deliberately chosen because it is as close to inert, chemically, as possible so it wouldn't react with gasoline. That means that no glue will stick to it. Plastic welding is ineffectual. I have two vehicles with these plastic tanks, and I speak from much experience.
 
My brother borrowed a plastic welder and I used it a bunch. It was a 1200 dollar machine, but it worked. I welded up several plastic tanks and other stuff.

IDK how those cheap ones work.
 
I put a tank from a '73 W300 into my '72 W200 and then found out it had a crack. I took it to a local RV dealer and they plastic welded it about 15 years ago. No problems so far. But I have noticed that there seems to be more than one kind of plastic tank, the 'smooth' ones and the 'hairy' ones. Mine was smooth and apparently welded well. The hairy ones, IDK.
 
I've used the one pictured to repair a fuel tank in my Bronco. Granted it was to fill the screw holes the previous owner put in it trying to half *** install replacement rockers. No leaks since the repair 5 years ago.
 
I have 2 of those plastic welder setups, I use them to fix cracks in the ABS sidewalls of my Apache popup camper. with plastic you MUST use identical filler material to the parent material if you want any hopes of a successful repair. Mine take 3 to 4 PSI of air to run along with the heat element (almost like a woodburner/soldering gun but not quite) There is a learning curve, best to have some scrap to learn on so you don't ruin an important part. There is a heat affected zone much like when welding steel....
on a closer related note to the OP, as has been said, there is something in the (for lack of a better way to put it) "alloy" of sorts of plastic used in a fuel tank.... my son had a crack in the tank in his 80 D150 and took it into this body shop that guaranteed he could fix it, since I don't have enough experience with mine, to have felt comfortable trying.... I have not used mine in a couple of years/ and never on gas tank style plastic... and we were having a tough time finding a replacement at the time.... after 4 or 5 times of reinstalling it and finding a puddle under it-- sometimes as he was dumping gas in it, sometimes not til next morning, and pulling it again, taking it back, he finally went and got his money back.... good guy at shop, he had alot of time into this thing, each time he was "sure" he had it "this time" but since he "guaranteed" it he refunded the job. Not many that honorable these days..... I finally found a replacement tank, at a hole in the wall junkyard that you would not have known was there among the weeds and trees/ if you weren't really looking for it. most yards these days, poke the tank as soon as the vehicle enters the yard anymore.
 
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