Long time no Golf...

[squirrel]

Been a while, hope you're all well. Time and life (and a severe lack of money or enthusiasm) have conspired to keep me away from both the car and this place, but today I finally got around to looking into why my Golf has been spluttering every time the engine gets under any load - the gauze leading into the fuel pump was almost completely caked up with rust from the tank.

So, I now have a cleaned gauze (and the need for a new one fairly soon) reinstalled, and about eight litres of rusty-looking petrol sitting in a bucket in my garage.

I also found out just how much distance I can cover on a litre of petrol. It's a lap of the block, minus the last 200 metres. Partly my fault for giving the engine a long-overdue workout...

Oh, and some more useful advice: If you have a suspected rib fracture, working under a car, and pushing said car a short distance, are two things that should be avoided.

Which brings me to a question: What's the best method for cleaning all the crap out of my fuel tank? I'm trying to avoid my mates suggestion of tank removal and broken glass as an abrasive.

[sports racer]

A lighted match works well.

Oh, hold on, it's not a Polo.

Back in the old days, when Jesus played fullback for Jerusalem, we used to add some oil to a full tank of petrol and put up with the smoke for a few days. Now there are rust converters you can get that can get rid of the rust but you've got to take the tank out.

Either way make sure you have a good, large size paper element petrol filter to catch all the rust.

[squirrel]

Decided we're going to get it up on the hoist, and circulate a few litres of petrol through a paper filter and try and flush as much of the crap out. Time to invest in a tow rope just in case we don't make it the 40-odd kilometres to Coburg...