Gas smell in coleman cooler
Clearly someone used the cooler to dump gasoline that was probably old. That odor is extremely difficult to get out. First try this: Let it air out indirect sunlight, tilting the cooler so the sunlight gets to the inside, Do this for at least three days and as much as a week. After you've done that, there will likely still be some of the gasoline smell still there but it should be a lot less noticeable.
Next, get a large box or even a bag of baking soda. Make sure the drain plug is in and dump at least two cups of baking soda in the bottom of the cooler.
Add enough water to make a paste of the baking soda. The paste should be thick enough to smear and stick to the walls of the cooler. Do that...smear it on, completely covering the walls, bottom and inside of the top of the cooler.
If you run out of paste make a little more but make sure that every part of the inside of the cooler is covered with paste. Leave the paste on for a minimum of 24 hours but preferably 48 hours or more. Shut the lid to slow down drying of the paste.
After 24 hours or more, check to see if any odor remains. If it does, wait another 24 hours. After 48 hours, the baking soda will likely have done as much as it's going to do. Rinse the dried baking soda off the walls bottom and top, letting the residue collect in the water that is filling the cooler.
Add the remaining baking soda in the box or bag to the water stirring it until it has dissolved. Fill the cooler to the top with water and close the lid. Wait 24 hours then drain the cooler. If you're lucky the odor, or most of it, will be gone.
This is a slow tedious process but it can work. I've never tried it on gasoline odor but I used it forplastic pickle buckets and it's never gotten the odor completely out but it has gotten enough out to make the bucket usable. Good luck!
