The Rusty D Model Gas Tank…

Over the years one of the biggest problems I saw new owners of used Citroens of any kind face with a steel fuel tank, was a rusty gas tank.

It was a BIG problem…

Even though the previous owner told him the car was run on a regular basis, there is a good chance that the car sat around for several years before you got it with only a couple of gallons of fuel in the tank. And the previous owner might have driven the car around town a bit and that was the extent of “run on a regular basis” Now, if that car lived in the eastern half of the U.S. the weather is usually on the humid side. With only a bit of fuel in the tank the area not covered by fuel is prone to rust from the condensation that forms in the tank, especially in the warm summer months.The car I am most familiar with having this problem is the D model. I don’t know if it was the type of steel used in the manufacture of the tank, or what, but the type of rust that is formed is a very fine type almost like a silt.

They LOVE the new D Model…

When the new owner first gets the car delivered to him everything is just fine. He gets the car home and his wife even likes the color although she hasn’t quite adjusted to the rest of its appearance.

Now he drives it around town a bit and starts to enjoy the car. The gas tank gets filled up a few times and now it’s time for that little car show that is a couple of hundred miles away.Yep, you guessed it. He talks the wife into going along with him, convincing her that there will be plenty of things that she will be able to do with some of the other wives who will be there.

The first road trip…

He loads the car up, fills the gas tank up and sets off. During this trip he has to hop onto the interstate for the first time with the car and he is amazed at how well the car handles at higher speeds.

Suddenly about 100 miles out he notices a distinct power drop in the car and then suddenly he is heading for the shoulder as the engine shuts down. What happened? Well, being resourceful and having brought a few tools along, he makes a few checks under the hood.

He just so happened to have an extra spark plug with him so he pulls a plug wire off and connects the plugs to it. He lays it down on the valve cover to ground it, turns on the ignition, makes sure the car is in neutral, and using the neat little relay switch that the D model has on it’s positive battery post he turns the engine over a bit. He has a spark all right, so now what?

He puts the plug wire back where it belongs and he notices where the fuel pump lies on the driver’s side of the engine and that the fuel hose leading up to the carburetor is pretty easy to get at so he loosens the clamp and carefully slides it off. Now with the ignition turned off he turns the engine over again.

No gas…darn

This time he notices that there is no fuel being fed out of the fuel line up to the carburetor. He knows that he has plenty of gas in the car, so with a heavy heart, and a very disgusted wife he puts the hose back where it belongs and pulls his cell phone out to call Triple A for a flat tow back home. Well, he is home again and his better half is reminding him that the money spent on the purchase of that car could have gone into something far more useful like a new kitchen.

Well, what should this guy do? Regardless of whether he decides to keep his wonderful piece of history or sell it he has a problem on his hands and it will need to be repaired. It is always interesting, the many filter contraptions that people attach onto their cars in hopes that this problem will go away, but it doesn’t, therefore it must be addressed. How he should go about that is next time……

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