Thanks for the advice. I drained and flushed this tank a few weeks ago to get the massive volume of crud out of the tank. I also pumped a lot of water into the tank through the pickup tube and bung and encountered no resistance. In addition to filling and flushing through the filler neck and sender hole.

It would help me out a lot if anyone had a picture of what the tank interior looks like. I can take an educated guess at what happens in there, but where an intact fuel pickup ends and how long that tube actually is supposed to be is unknown to me. Perhaps I could examine my 220... wagons differ, but I'm guessing that the pickup is about the same...

Also, I'm not imagining a line that is shoved into the pickup and exiting the bung to be mated to the fuel line, but just a "liner" of sorts, completely encased inside the existing pickup extending the pickup to a proper length and ending just before the main fuel line attachment at the bung. This would be completely self-contained and invisible. No fuel leakage, no tesla coils nor an interocitor. There should be no more risks here than running a car on gasoline generally requires.

Perhaps I'm being naive, but I'm not sure why I'm hearing such resistance about putting a liner tube into my decaying pickup. Even if it did restrict fuel flow somewhat, it couldn't be any worse that a half-full car, suddenly loosing power in rush hour traffic and bucking down the highway shoulder at 20-30 mph...