Patching a red plastic Moeller marine fuel tank?

[mommucked]

A fornicating squirrel chewed a very small hole in the top of my 12 gal tank. How can I seal it?

 

[rodney eppes]

I'd look for a glue or rtv product that works on rubber & plastic, + gasoline resistant. The hole is on top, so that is better than being immersed in gas 100% of the time. Lowe's probably has more choices than the auto part stores. Could also check a Marine supply.

 

[rockcity]

I found some at West Marine to use on a fuel cell. It wasn't cheap but was better than buying a new cell

 

[shawn]

They sell an epoxy at Autozone that I successfully used to plug a hole in the bottom of a steel tank. It might be compatible with poly tanks.

 

[mommucked]

Thanks

 

[Loganwayne]

god im glad im not the only one that has something happen to a tank and thinks im gonna fix it instead of getting a new tank.

 

[Infamous1]

Guy came by work and patched a 1000 gallon poly tank with a plastic welder. He said he bought it from Harbor Freight and it worked great.

 

[frankenyoter]

Not sure how it reacts with gasoline but the plastic epoxy served me well on cracked plastic before.

 

[Fabrik8]

If that's a red Moeller tank, it's polyethylene. Your best option is a plastic welder, period. Polyethylene is very low surface energy plastic and also has a fairly high coeff of thermal expansion, so it's pretty damn hard to get anything to stick to it.

Forget about epoxy. Epoxy is far too sensitive to surface prep, and will have peel and shear problems on that type of plastic as it's not going to adhere well and that will get worse because it won't expand at the same rate. Also, consumer-grade epoxies are just worthless crap, and are far overpriced for their crap performance. Very profitable though.

Same thing with silicone, super glue, polyurethane, general purpose acrylics. They won't stick.

Loctite 3035 polyolefin bonder will likely work quite well, but it's about $50 per cartridge plus the cost of a dispenser gun. Gasoline and UV resistant though. Also 3M DP8005 (slightly cheaper, maybe $35?). They're both 2-part acrylic adhesives. Not worth it for a small hole in a $80 tank, especially if it's small enough for a plastic welder to easily patch.


Sooooo.... Plastic welder.

 

[DSM Turbos]

Why has nobody mentioned Flex Seal?

 

[mommucked]

Thanks again. For now I'm gonna close the vent screw on the cap cause It don't need 2 vents. I'll have to see how much gas leaks out when it sloshes around trailering and on the water.

 

[rodney eppes]

mommucked, you may have just come up with an idea! Drill the hole to a suitable bolt size, vent size, bolt in car rim valve size,or Something of that nature. Start with a nylon washer on both sides [if using a bolt], & pull it up tight. Something like that hold it!
OR, to be Really cool, use valve stem, pressurize the tank, WaLah, Fuel Injection!