Dear Amazonphil,

Hope you're well and stay so. An LED flashlight with fresh batteries should produce more than enough light to make visible any debris on the tank's floor. The floor is a tad over a foot below the opening for the fuel send unit. The lowest part of the tank is straight-down from the fuel send unit's opening, so is easily inspected.

Uunless the gas is very old or otherwise contaminated, there's no good reason to drain the gas tank. Water in the gas tank can be removed by adding some "dry gas" (methanol). Alcohols (ethanol [drinkable] or methanol [poisonous]) bond with water, enabling the water to be "burned" along with the alcohol.

As you noted, draining the tank means handling gasoline, which is best avoided for the reason you cite.

Hope this helps.

Yours faithfully,

Spook