Helpping scrub up a laser for a mate thats been sitting for about 3 years. I think it had about 5 litres of premium (not that it makes much diff) left in it. It has a really sweet smell to it and comes out a strange yellow colour and is ever so slightly thicker than normal fuel.

Is it a bottle of metho or turps in the tank to clear that out? i dont intend to run the fuel, i just want to thin whats left in there out so i can fire the pump and flush the system with some new fuel so i can put the system back together with out having slime get in to everything

Cheers

A bottle of metho is the usual quick fix.

Running the 10% ethanol fuel for a while is usually great too. Scavenges the water from the tank and dissolves stuff ULP/PULP won't. For EFI cars, tipping 2 litres of paint thinners/gunwash into a near-empty tank and driving it till empty works wonders. Yes it runs crap and smokes/smells but it works well.


Is it EFI or carby? Does it have a metal or plastic tank? If it's metal, and it's rusty, you're buggered. Rusty tanks never get better, you can pay to have it cleaned and "sealed" but it's not worth it. They fill your fuel pump, filters, carby/injectors full of s**t and it's just bad news.

Can you get a thin hose down the fuel filler? This is to drain the dregs out.
If it's EFI with in-tank pump, you can usually pull the pump out and suck the crap out of the tank thru there.
Often easiest to put an airgun on a decent air compressor in the fuel filler, seal it up with a wet rag or such. Then put a hose into the hole where the fuel pump was, and seal around it with a rag.
Scratch the hose around the bottom of the tank especially any deep pockets.
The air blows the dregs of fuel and any crap out through the hose. Drop a few litres of fuel/metho/thinners etc into it once empty as a fresh flush, continue until the hose runs clean.

Don't forget to change the inline (and electric pump pickup filter if fitted) fuel filter after you're done.