I got my 68 licensed today and took her for a spin down to get some premium gas for its B18B. I found that my speedometer is busted (nothing special there). On my way back, the car began to sputter and died entirely on a side street. I had a strong suspicious about the cause and a quick check revealed that my inline pre-pump fuel filter was completely clogged with brown gunk. This happened once before and if the pattern holds, it will happen each time I top up my gas tank. After the first time, I put in a renewable element glass filter, so I just unscrewed the end, cleaned it out, and was on my way.

So, it appears that my fuel tank is full of crud. It also has a big-arse dent in it. I'd need to drop it to have any hope of fixing that dent, but it's not something I want to do with ~10 gallons of gas in the car.

So my question is should I keep just cleaning out that filter until the fuel is clean, or should I should I drop the tank as soon as I can and flush it and try to get that dent out? Is there some practical way to filter out the tank contents?