The Panda's come off the road to sort a few things. One of which is the fuel tank which started weeping last year which I temporarily patched with chemical metal.

I think I know what I am going/need to do but thought I would check in first to get your wise thoughts.

The tanks off and cleaned up round the suspect area, there's a pinhole and a few potentials in one corner. I have bought this stuff POR15 along with the cleaners etc. From what I have read that should seal the hole. What would you recommend for the outside. After I treat the metal, I can either galvafroid it to try and stop the metal rusting further or slap more chemical metal over or I have seen people using fibreglass resin to seal the hole some more. Any thoughts on the best approach so I don't have to revisit the problem in a years time?

Another option is to use my spare 4x4 tank, but i'm keeping that on the down low...

I've repaired the tank in 127 mk1 with fiberglass and resin. Because of the lowered suspension, I hit a rock or something and made a 5cm long hole in the tank. As I said, I've repaired it with fiberglass and resin, and had used the car 6 more years , no problems with the repaired area. Just make it clean and it will work for ages.

Por15 is the way to go; you might want to give the outside of the tank a good clean before you begin the repair/sealing process for the inside.

Where you know about holes just stick a bit of Gaffa tape to stop the cleaners/sealant and stuff leaking out.

Once it is done use anything from Hammerite to real paint to fibreglass as a finishing coat.

Talons tank was bad.. i had to cut the whole bottom off that and weld a new bit in.

i used some tank sealelnt stuff which paints the whole inside of the tank to stop any future rusting.

after that i painted the whole tank with hammerite and then under sealed the whole thing.

still seems good... or seams good... har har.

Dragon Man said:

Talons tank was bad.. i had to cut the whole bottom off that and weld a new bit in.

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What welding type do you use? I have absolutely zero confidence in being able to produce a water tight weld and would undoubtedly make it worse than it was!

for thin metals i use mig 0.6mm wire, seam welded using argon gas. gives you the absolute best weld you can get from a mig.

i still had a few pin holes in the tank after i wire brushed it but i filled it with tank sealant and it has been fine.

I have the Peterborough tank if you'd like to use it to cut patches from and seam weld into yours.

I guess I should invest in some 0.6mm wire and argon gas for these sorts of jobs. Have to say i'm pretty lazy when it comes to welding and tend to use fluxed wire as I hate running out of gas. In any case the tanks actually not too bad, I had it off a few years ago and cleaned and painted it then, though the leaking fuel stripped all the paint off the bottom. Judging by your case studies the sealer should do a good job.