I know the previous owner of my '93 did very little driving during the ten years he owned the car. I'm wondering, since I've gone to the expense of having my injectors cleaned. whether it might be a good time to pull out the gas tank to inspect and clean it. I've read about XJS tanks rusting ... just wondering at what point that becomes a problem.This one is 18 years old.

 

pull the fuel filter out and dump it into a bucket to see what is in it. If you see rust, you know it's coming from the tank.

 

Good suggestion. (Although there's no way to know when the previous owner last changed the filter). In this case, judging from the grime around the filter, I have to wonder if he ever changed it.
In any case, lots of grit in the filter. No large flakes of rust however...which doesn't mean it isn't forming in the 18 year old tank.
I'm wondering if anything was done in the later models to prevent the tank from rusting.

 

My tank is almost 30 years old and looks brand new inside. I did have to have two spot welds re-welded but that's not a corrosion issue.

I recall reading somewhere that one reason gas tanks start to rust is they are stored with very little gas in the tank. Condensation forms on the exposed metal and starts rusting. If your tank spent most of its' time nearly full you may be OK.

It's also probably worse in areas with wide seasonal shifts as the condensation problem would be exacerbated by the "breathing" through the evap system due to temperature swings.

Don't take this as gospel...just speculation...

D

P.S. in the end it only takes an hour or so to pull the tank. Not nearly the nightmare it's made out to be. It wouldn't hurt to pull it anyway.

 

This is a case where I got a head start when I got my car. It's a 83 convertible. I don't know who converted it, there isn't a tag anywhere that I can find, but they replaced the tank with a beautiful welded ALUMINUM tank!