Water tank

I am contemplating purchasing a coachbuilt (Bedford CF2) Autosleeper. The vendor informs me that she placed petrol in the fresh water tank by mistake. I will want to replace the tank and possibly some or all of the plumbing. I would like to know what sort of difficulties I might encounter in removing and installing the tank.

Hi Phil

Before you get the spanners out, have a trawl on the various motorhome forums. This mistake happens fairly frequently and there have been several remedies suggested which appear to clean the tank very efficiently. Most of these have had diesel in the water tank, which I would think is probably even more difficult than petrol.

Worth a look??

Dave

This is what you need to read as Dave says. It's a 'sticky' in the technical section...

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Modern petrol contains ethanol which is known to affect certain plastics. I think I would at least drop the tank to inspect it. Was there water in the tank when she put petrol in it? if so, the ethanol will have combined with the water to form a gel which will sink to the bottom. If she hasn't run the water pump then the pipework should be OK [praps a bit smelly till it gets washed out]

Frank

Thanks everybody. I won't know what the situation is until I view it Thursday evening. Its a very late CF2 (A or B registration) with the monocoque body shell.

Hi Phil, if you do decide to remove the water tank then here is my penny's worth of support... I have just done this on a 1995 VW Trophy, where I had to un bolt two large metal straps holding the tank, that were fixed to the chassis. Spray these bolts with WD40 the day before because the bolts can be pretty rusty. On one side the straps were bolted directly to the chassis but on the other they were held with a threaded rod that hooked over a hole in a chassis beam. All the nuts were a bit tricky to get a spanner on, until I tried some tap monoblock spanners like these:
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I found one that was just right, especially for the threaded rod, sliding over the the rod and making it easy to unlatch things. If I did it again, I might undo the direct connection bolts first and then see if the straps might be loose enough to un hook the threaded bolts without having to take the nuts off. Supporting the tank with a plastic washing up bowl is a good way to stop it from dropping as it comes loose....and vice versa for fixing it on again. Don't use Milton sterilisers, as I am sure you will read in other posts...use a dedicated water tank cleaner like puriclean from Halfords. Hope that helps.
Chris

Just a point, when I had the water tank off my Topaz I renewed the hangers to be sure they were secure and safe, didn`t want to lose the tank going along the road.

I've been to view the vehicle concerned, apparently the water tank has been flushed. The incident happened about 4 years ago but the pump has not been reconnected. Also the water tank is fitted on the offside, all the others I have seen appear to have the tank fitted at the rear.