Topic: Need Tank liner reviews/experiences

[Mo]

There doesn't seem to be a mention about the caswell system. At first, I thought it was easy to use and apply. Seemed to cure nice and solid. 6 months later, notice that the liner was peeling off. For a $50 liner, I was none too pleased. Luckily I had a nice and clean spare tank to use.

Now I'm sitting around with a crap tank that I need to rehabilitate in the future..

[davidtime]

There doesn't seem to be a mention about the caswell system. At first, I thought it was easy to use and apply. Seemed to cure nice and solid. 6 months later, notice that the liner was peeling off. For a $50 liner, I was none too pleased. Luckily I had a nice and clean spare tank to use.

Now I'm sitting around with a crap tank that I need to rehabilitate in the future..

Mo, what prep work did you do on the tank?

[Duanob]

There doesn't seem to be a mention about the caswell system. At first, I thought it was easy to use and apply. Seemed to cure nice and solid. 6 months later, notice that the liner was peeling off. For a $50 liner, I was none too pleased. Luckily I had a nice and clean spare tank to use.

Now I'm sitting around with a crap tank that I need to rehabilitate in the future..

.

thanks for the info Mo.

I just bought 3 gallons of acetone so I am at least ready to remove the old liner.

[Duanob]

I did some more research on other forums. One chopper forum had nothing nice to say about POR-15. One guy says he's done about 40 tanks with the caswell and hasn't had any come back. I may bite the bullet on the price of $45 for the kit. As long as the prep is done right. If the prep is done wrong than I guess any product will fail.

I don't want to sell the bike if I know something might fail on it especially something that I did. 

I'll keep ya'll posted on how it goes. Always nice to have another product to use with these bikes. Good tanks are getting fewer and pricier by the day!

[ohiocaferacer]

I just did the Caswell tank liner kit this past weekend on an old GS1000 tank that had a ton of rust and holes....WORKED AWESOME!!
Here is the write up I posted over on the GSResources forum.

Decided to try the Caswell tank sealer kit on my 1978 GS1000 tank that was badly rusted on the bottom with several holes. So last weekend went to Home Depot and got 2 gallons of Klean-Strip Phosphoric Prep & Etch and then dumped it into a big storage tote and placed the tank to soak for several days.



Someone left some gas in the bottom of this tank and it was rusted out. Alot of holes all over the bottom of the tank. I tried TIG welding some of the holes, but the metal was just too thin. Thus the reason for going the tank sealer route.



Put in a few drywall screws and after the first day.....we were showing progress. Rust was going away.



After about 4-5 days soaking.....all the rust was gone.



At this point I pulled the tank out of the acid bath and covered the outside and inside with baking soda to neutralize the acid. Once that was done, I used the air hose to dry out the tank....then poured lacquer thinner inside the tank to remove any leftover water. Using duct tape, I taped over the entire bottom of the tank to seal off any holes. Opened up the Caswell tank liner kit and mixed half of the kit, to get a 1st coat inside the tank.

The kit worked really good and was easy to use. The mix flowed really nice as I was doing this in about 70-80 degree weather. Majority of the tank coated with the 1st application. I'll mix up the final application tonight and finish sealing the areas missed during the 1st application.

Here are pics after the 1st application, after it had dried. The pics show the inside of the tank as brown(rust like), but when looking in the tank it is a drak metallic grey.....not sure why the pics did that.



Overall.....seems like the Caswell tank liner kit is working great. I'll update once the tank liner has several days to harden and have run some gas thru it. More soon......

[zuehl666]

I used KBS Gold Standard sealer, it works great and seems to be a good price too. Its under 20 bucks for 8oz of sealer which will coat a 5gal tank. I used it on my fiberglass oil and steel gas tank.

[Stev-o]

I've done two tanks with Caswell this year, too early to give a recommendation yet. One can, about $45 from Amazon, did both tanks.  I'm confident it is a good product and will hold up.
One other thing, it is clear and looks better in the tank than other liners.

[78whiteorbs]

I have had very good results with Redkote- Can be had at most parts stores is a big plus for the weekend warrior. 30$ a can and I can do 2 or 3 tanks easy.  First time I used it I failed miserably but after "melting down" what looked like a diseased human organ with MEK which I utterly despise using because it is such a hardcore solvent I gave it another go. If you thin it with  Acetone it drys in like 3-4 hours at a 3-1 ratio.  They should have named it something cooler like dragons blood.

Honorable mention if no pin holes are present after a nice washing out with coupla handfuls of bolts and muratic acid is immediately pour a bottle of naval jelly(the hot pink stuff) in swirl around , drain and rinse with a couple cups of gas and immediately fill tank with gas and try and keep it topped off for a while. Both methods have worked great for me. I unly use redkote if I suspect pinholes or seams leaking , it is pretty tough stuff .

my .02

[greenjeans]

Another vote for redkote.   A lesson I learned - thin it so it flows easily.  You don't want it to pool.   Let it dry completely - until you can't smell it anymore.
It took longer to dry than I thought.  2 coats.    Looks as good as it did 3.5 years ago.

[Black 750K8]

All of this boils down to ONE thing Prep it has to be done correctly no short cuts with what ever product you use. I have only used por15 and only with car tanks 49-53 Chevy's and have never had a failure with some going on 15 years. It is ALL IN THE PREP.

[Duanob]

Thanks for that write up ohiocaferacer! I use prep-n-etch too it works great.

OK so far I have some lessons learned:

1) don't use a real wine cork to plug the drain hole when using acetone. It melted! and leaked about half of the acetone out into the plastic tub. That was $38 dollars worth. Although I tossed a plastic wine cork into the plastic tub filled with acetone and so far it looks like it hasn't been affected. Also remember when the acetone eats the liner, the pin holes will start to leak as well. That was another gallon and $19 worth. I have less then a gallon left but it seems to be eating away at the old failed liner. Pretty fast too.

2) just when you decide to start to fix something that is a PITA and easier replaced, a good part will eventually show up. I bought a good used non leaking 550F tank off of ebay for $85 so I will use that one instead. I really would rather not use a liner and for the new tank I will just derust and use it as is. The old one I may eventually refurbish with a liner and new paint but for now my goal is to get the bike sold before winter hits.

[Mo]

For prep, I cleaned the inside using thumb tacks to knock off the bulk of the rust. Then I let it soak in Prep n' Etch till all was left was a matte-esque metal finish. Swirled baking soda and water around in there to neutralize the acid, and dried with a blow dryer for ~1 hour.

I think applied the Caswell liner (I used the full kit) on the CB500 tank. 6 mos later, and it was coming apart

[lucky]

I've soldered pin holes before.  I don't have any welding apparatus though either...

Never weld on a gas tank. Soldering is ok.

[CB750wannabe]

Had a great experience with Redkote.  Would use it again on another bike in a heartbeat.  Best of luck!

[kghost]

I've soldered pin holes before.  I don't have any welding apparatus though either...

Never weld on a gas tank. Soldering is ok.

I weld on them literally all the time.

[Retro Rocket]

I've soldered pin holes before.  I don't have any welding apparatus though either...

Never weld on a gas tank. Soldering is ok.

I weld on them literally all the time.

You are correct Tim, Lucky seems paranoid or doesn't know the correct procedure for welding tanks, thats surprises me considering he is supposed to be a welding expert....

[Terry in Australia]

I've used Kreem without any problems, and I've used POR-15 with only one failure. As has been said before, it's all in the preparation, do it properly and it'll last, do a half-arsed job and expect it to fail, you won't be disappointed. No tank sealer is idiot-proof.

A word on welding. Tanks rust from the inside out, so while there might be only a pin hole on the outside of your tank, the insides will resemble a moon scape and applying heat by anything else than a butane soldering rig will just blow holes in it. 

Using Bondo on the outside over pinholes will only push bondo thru the pinholes, which will create stalactites of bondo on the insides of the tank, that the sealant will most likely not be able to seal around. Bondo isn't fuel proof, so the fuel will be absorbed through the Bondo, and soon you'll soon see little bubbles of gas sitting under your shiney paint.

The correct method should be - strip the paint off the tank, (or if your paint is really good, mask it so that the sealant doesn't come into contact with it) clean and line as per the manufacturers instructions, then Bondo over any external dents when the sealer has properly cured. Cheers, Terry.    

[ohiocaferacer]

I've soldered pin holes before.  I don't have any welding apparatus though either...

Never weld on a gas tank. Soldering is ok.

I weld on them literally all the time.

Ditto!!

[Airbusboy]

I used 'Metal Rescue' from Home Depot to clean the rust/gum from my tank.  The stuff comes in one gallon containers and looks, smells like water. Use it full strength. Not cheap...$25 a gallon.  Non-acidic.  Plug the holes, pour in Metal Rescue and let it sit for 2-8 hours. It dissolves the rust but watch for flash-over rust.  I then used 'Red-Kote' to coat the interior and let it sit for several days to dry out (VERY critical!).  So far I'm VERY happy with the results.

[Terry in Australia]

I've done two tanks with Caswell this year, too early to give a recommendation yet. One can, about $45 from Amazon, did both tanks.  I'm confident it is a good product and will hold up.
One other thing, it is clear and looks better in the tank than other liners.

Hmmnn, I beg to differ Steve, I think the POR-15 is a fetching shade of silver and looks lovely in my tank.

[VTCBike750]

Just my 2 cents, my POR-15 failed and I followed the directions as best I can. Very disappointed in the product.
I have a Caswell liner I'm using next

[Terry in Australia]

When you say it (POR-15) failed Adam, can you be a bit more specific? My experience was on a tank I did that I'd split to knock a dent out, and then brazed back together. I did the POR-15 thing and it still leaked, so I dried it out completely (hot air gun, compressed air and baking in my industrial oven) then recoated it.

After this it looked fine, and it didn't leak, but 6 months later, the owner sent me some pics, and the POR-15 had puckered up like paint does if you spill thinners on it? I don't know whether the fuel he'd used was the cause, or whether the fuel had managed to seep between the layers, or what, but I ended up doing another tank for him. I must say though, that I'd used the same batch of POR-15 on my gold CB750 and my cafe racer and had no problems with either of those bikes. Cheers, Terry.

[HondaMan]

When you say it (POR-15) failed Adam, can you be a bit more specific? My experience was on a tank I did that I'd split to knock a dent out, and then brazed back together. I did the POR-15 thing and it still leaked, so I dried it out completely (hot air gun, compressed air and baking in my industrial oven) then recoated it.

After this it looked fine, and it didn't leak, but 6 months later, the owner sent me some pics, and the POR-15 had puckered up like paint does if you spill thinners on it? I don't know whether the fuel he'd used was the cause, or whether the fuel had managed to seep between the layers, or what, but I ended up doing another tank for him. I must say though, that I'd used the same batch of POR-15 on my gold CB750 and my cafe racer and had no problems with either of those bikes. Cheers, Terry.

I prefer POR-15 but it has the same fatal flaw as all the others: if you don't prep the metal and COMPLETELY coat the inside, then follow directions to the letter (including the drying times) then it can delaminate in big sheets when the fuel (ethanol, here) gets under it. Then you have to do it all again (which works, BTW).

I have been doing it twice on the tanks I've done lately, and then it seems to work perfectly. The stuff, when dried, has to be DRILLED out of the petcock holes, with a brand new, sharp drill, if you forget to cover them up. Keep that in mind! It turns hard as metal itself.

[thomellis]

I've had good luck with the electrolysis method for getting rust out. 

I'll also give a +1 for Caswell's.  It is a bit more, but so far it's worked great for me (had it for 1 year).  The original tank had a big dent, and so I wanted to make sure there weren't any pin hole leaks from the welds to fix it.  No complaints.  Pretty easy to use, just make sure you read the directions, there's a couple good vids on youtube about it as well.

[VTCBike750]

When you say it (POR-15) failed Adam, can you be a bit more specific? My experience was on a tank I did that I'd split to knock a dent out, and then brazed back together. I did the POR-15 thing and it still leaked, so I dried it out completely (hot air gun, compressed air and baking in my industrial oven) then recoated it.

After this it looked fine, and it didn't leak, but 6 months later, the owner sent me some pics, and the POR-15 had puckered up like paint does if you spill thinners on it? I don't know whether the fuel he'd used was the cause, or whether the fuel had managed to seep between the layers, or what, but I ended up doing another tank for him. I must say though, that I'd used the same batch of POR-15 on my gold CB750 and my cafe racer and had no problems with either of those bikes. Cheers, Terry.

Hey Terry,
Here's the link to my post from a while ago:
http://forums.sohc4.net/index.php?topic=99299.msg1107442#msg1107442

Basically had a rough tank with a previous kreem liner, washed it all out with acetone, screws, loose change, garden hose, etc.; went through all the steps on the POR-15 instructions and had the liner start to fail at the seems. The best I can guess, there was some moisture (not water) in the seems which prevented adherence to the tank and it broke down. The other theory that I have is it gets so cold in VT without an insulated garage and the tank constricted and expanded with temperature changes and the POR liner split. I have no basis on that, but a thought.

It was a long PITA project that I would like to never revisit unless I have to. The Tank had seen better days when I first got it, a failing Kreme liner and a good amount of rust.




So after a lot of Acetone (should of used MEK), I got it to look like this:


And After POR15 this:



Followed the directions per Tim perfectly, http://forums.sohc4.net/index.php?topic=1586.0;nowap.  His directions only digressed from the manufacture's by increasing the amount of time the marine clean is in the tank.

I got it as dry as I could, maybe a little overboard. Killed one blowdryer. I dried it out, got the tank hot, let it cool and repeated...for a while


After 8 months later I find this:



I did leave the tank outside over the winter without gas. Couldn't go inside the basement storage per landlord or inside the apartment per wife due to the gas smell.

I prefer POR-15 but it has the same fatal flaw as all the others: if you don't prep the metal and COMPLETELY coat the inside, then follow directions to the letter (including the drying times) then it can delaminate in big sheets when the fuel (ethanol, here) gets under it. Then you have to do it all again (which works, BTW).

HM, can you elaborate? Are you retreating the POR-15 inside the tank?