Here's what I ended up doing:
1) I cut the water level sensor wires and added butt connectors to them. (Although my 1/3rd full doesn't seem to work very well... a different story.)
2) I opened the plastic panel coverings on the passenger side and disconnected the hoses from the filler valve. I snapped the return air vent nipple while I was at it. That required me to drill a new hole and epoxy in a new nipple. That plastic has become brittle after 30 years!
3) I added supports under the fresh water tank and removed the nuts from the four hanger rods.
4) The tank didn't want to drop by itself. Something was sticking it up there... so I started to fill it with water! The weight of the water helped to push it down and it turns out there was a small strip of black adhesive that had stuck to the tank a bit.
5) Once the tank was removed, I took a brass plug, connected it to a 4 foot long piece of tubing, attached a garden hose fitting to the other side and drilled six "jet holes" in the brass plug. I used this with full town water pressure (60psi) to spray out the inside of the tank. I used a combo of dish soap and a bit of pool shock and spent over an hour "blasting" the inside. A cheap endoscope from Amazon helped me to confirm it was clean and my nose told me it was good.
6) The old support beams were bent into a "u-shape", so I had some new beams made from galvanized box tube steel. The boxes are about 1 1/4 inch thick and 2 inches wide... perfect. They added probably 10 pounds to those hanger bolts, but I checked the welds and they looked good.
7) I reversed the process to put the tank back in. The hardest part was reconnecting the fill hole on the passenger side because there's no room to reach in, attach the hose and clamp on a hose clamp. I used new tubing too... and found that a hairdryer used to heat up the end allowed me to slide it better onto the fill nipple.
Everything is great... I added a new bottom opening water filter as well.
I'm having a problem with my 1/3 full indicator not working. My water level indicator seems to jump from empty to 2/3rds, although a drain test showed it indicating the 1/3rd for a couple of seconds. I might have reversed the wires or something.
For anyone who is considering dropping their fresh water tank to seriously blast clean it, beware, it's tougher than it looks... but it's not rocket science.
-Pete
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