After reading the various responses from folks here (thank you!), and
studying up some more, I decided that I did not want to muck about with
the muriatic acid, for reasons of personal safety, environmental,
disposal, and of course, damage to the tank, paint, etc.
I cleaned it up as much as possible, using pressure washer, degreaser, a
handful of nuts & bolts and a garden hose. That removed a lot of rust
scale, but the interior of the tank was still very rusty.
Then I purchased a gallon of Evapo-Rust, dumped it in the tank, and left
it to sit over night. Checked it this morning, and was rather surprised
to find it ACTUALLY WORKS AS ADVERTISED! You coulda knocked me over with
a feather! It's been in there about 15 hours so far, looks like a few
more hours will be required. There are a few little flecks of rust here
and there. They say it takes from 30 minutes to 24 hours... This was a
heavily rusted tank and I see clean bare metal now!
Then I will have to turn the tank over & let it go another 24 hours,
since I didn't have enough to completely fill it.
I am going to have to try this stuff on a lot of other parts!
Marc
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