How To: Ford CMP "Blitz" miscellany

[Jacques Reed]

Hi Phil,

Looking at your photos inside a fuel tank and looking at my dent I think I am lucky as it looks to be forward of the baffle plate based on the spot welds I can see on the bottom of my tank. It also means I don't have to fit steel through the limber holes in the bottom of the baffle to access the dent from inside. Unfortunately it is about 4 inches forward of the filler neck so there is not direct line to tap it out. Tried bent rods a while back but the bigger the diameter of the rod the less radius I could put on it to get it down the neck and I was working blind. A small diameter rod was ineffective. This was what got me thinking about PDR until I revisited using a magnet after Graeme's suggestion.

If the baffle was bent I reckon the strongest magnet in the world would not pull the bottom straight.

I may wait until I get my inspection camera at Xmas to see what I have there. In the meantime I will experiment with the magnet and steel balls, and bars of steel to see how much holding power I can generate.

It is not the end of the world if I cannot get the dent out but would be nice to remove it. As you said Phil, it doesn't really affect the tank capacity and it does not leak. I guess if I didn't know it was there it wouldn't bother me.

Attached is a better image of the dent from side on.

Cheers,

Cheers,