Topic: To seal or not to seal...

[drumstyx]

I cleaned out my fuel tank in the fall last year, using muriatic acid (diluted somewhat with water). It cleaned the tank right up, looked great. Rinsed it out good with water, then, gas, then fogged with WD 40, then about half a litre of 10w40 mixed with a litre or so of gas, shaken all around I figured it'd preserve the tank nicely.

Well, its *ok*, but definitely has some surface rust again, and I'm sure that has to do with using muriatic (hydrochloric) acid instead of phosphoric acid. Thing is, in Canada phosphoric acid is either hard to find (concrete etchers here are based on different chemicals it seems) or expensive (rust remover gel works, but it comes in tiny 250ml bottles for ~$7 a pop).

So the question now is, 1: what do I re-clean this with, and 2: after I clean it, should I seal it? My biggest concern is that, if I start having problems with the sealer, I'll have a heck of a lot more work getting that out, than just dealing with the rust....

[firebane]

Canada has a product you can find at Canadian Tire or Partssource that is good for rust. Its a water based product and stops flash rusting.

Its called Metal Rescue but silly expensive.

[flybox1]

Kleen Strip Prep-n-Etch.
Leaves a nice gray phosphoric coating and no flash rust.
Done.

[drumstyx]

Canada has a product you can find at Canadian Tire or Partssource that is good for rust. Its a water based product and stops flash rusting.

Its called Metal Rescue but silly expensive.

Yep, it's like $30/gallon. This is what, a 4 or 5 gallon tank? It's just absurd. I've heard it's fantastic, but there's just no way $150 is reasonable just to de-rust a tank. I'd sooner drive to the border for some of the good stuff in the USA.

[flybox1]

Life-Hack 101.  Dont fill your whole tank.
Fill your tank with old golf balls to take up the space, use half a gallon, and turn/shake your tank every half-hour.
Done by supper 

im sure you, or someone you know has a bag full of old golf balls 

[drumstyx]

I'm considering not getting it repainted until next winter, so I might just give it a rinse or two with some gasoline when I go to put it on, and run a fuel filter and see how it goes this summer. If I can get by with a filter and a full tank (maybe I'll run the acid through it again immediately before filling it with gas completely).

Come to think of it, I should probably de-rust the outside too and run it for the summer to check that there are no weak spots.

[flybox1]

Seriously, the prepnetch is awesome.
You dont really need golf balls if the rust is really light.  Just pour some in and slosh it around every 15 min or so.
It works almost instantly.

[drumstyx]

Life-Hack 101.  Dont fill your whole tank.
Fill your tank with old golf balls to take up the space, use half a gallon, and turn/shake your tank every half-hour.
Done by supper 

im sure you, or someone you know has a bag full of old golf balls 

Wow...I'm pretty sure I do...that's an amazing Idea, I feel like an idiot LOL

Kleen Strip Prep-n-Etch isn't available in Canada, and the only phosphoric etcher I could find (from searching for Kleen Strip Prep-n-Etch in Canada) was something like $230/gallon on Amazon. Yeah, it's rough here. I had to spend $100 to make my own berryman's carb dip out of methylene chloride and xylene. The methylene chloride alone was $80 for a gallon.

[flybox1]

The 550 I recently finished had a surface-rusted tank.  Not bad, but enough to eventually cause carb trouble.
Here's the 'after' picture during the drying process.  Nice grey coating.
I rinsed with hose water several times, and then once again with acetone.
Shopvac inserted thru the filler and left on for 10 minutes

[drumstyx]

The 550 I recently finished had a surface-rusted tank.  Not bad, but enough to eventually cause carb trouble.
Here's the 'after' picture during the drying process.  Nice grey coating.
I rinsed with hose water several times, and then once again with acetone.
Shopvac inserted thru the filler and left on for 10 minutes

I ride out to the USA fairly frequently in the summer on another bike, so I'll get some of the good stuff at a home depot there I suppose. In the meantime, the tank will work I'm sure, but it's definitely not 100%. After a rinse, a filter will take care of it for now, but if I'm investing hundreds in a nice paint job, well, I want it to be as good as it can be.

[innovativems]

I've had great results using metal rescue


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[drumstyx]

I've had great results using metal rescue


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Did you fill it 100%, or did you use something like the golf ball trick?

If it'll work with the golf balls, maybe I'll get one gallon and give it a shot if a rinse doesn't do a good enough job.

[innovativems]

I've had great results using metal rescue


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Did you fill it 100%, or did you use something like the golf ball trick?

If it'll work with the golf balls, maybe I'll get one gallon and give it a shot if a rinse doesn't do a good enough job.

I did three gallons which pretty much fills my tanks and let it sit for 2-3 days and rotate it periodically.  Gold balls is pretty dang smart!  Save me some $$


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[Johnie]

I used the Metal Rescue on a 750 tank also with good results. When done I rinsed with water. Put about a gallon of gas in and shook it around. Dumped that out and filled with all gas and no issues. Worked good...

[markreimer]

I had a 350f tank that sat outside for 40 years. It was ALL rust.

I filled it will a few liters of white vinegar ($5 at grocery store) and a box of small sheet screws. I gave it a hard shake a few times a day for a few days, changing the vinegar out once because the tank leaked a little. That brought the tank back to 100% rust free condition.

I then treated it with a Caswell two part sealer. I've heard all manner of horror stories with Kream and that red stuff, but only good things with Caswell. I can confirm it's amazing. Make sure you're in a warm place so the sealant stays thin and coats the entire interior. I've had zero leaks, rust or carb issues for the last 7,000km of riding.


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[innovativems]

On bad tanks I do vinegar, metal rescue, then seal with Caswell


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[b52bombardier1]

That Prep and Etch phosphoric acid mentioned above works great. Even better when it is heated to a boil and poured in hot. That revs up the chemistry and leaves a good iron phosphate coating that the POR15 urethane seems to crave.

This Prep and Etch phosphoric acid is stronger than the phosphoric acid in the actual POR15 fuel tank sealer kit and much less expensive. Works faster.

I will most likely be finishing my friend's 1999 Honda 50 minibike tank tonight. All of the rust is just about gone and I need to empty and dry the tank. After that, in goes the urethane and I hand paint the gasoline side of the fuel tank cap.

Voila!! He will never, ever need to worry about fuel tank rust again.

Rick

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[Duanob]

If you don't have a leak, don't bother sealing it, there is no need to.

[jkminer]

I've used the POR15 system on a few tanks. It's even taken care of some tanks that had a good deal of scale on them. 

It has a rust remover, a cleaner and a sealer. Priced pretty reasonably in the US, I think the last time I bought it was ~$50, cheaper than having a radiator repair place dip and seal it and allows you to keep the paint.  It takes about a weekend to go through the whole thing, but works like a charm.

[Don R]

 On my sandcast I use an oz of synthetic 2 stroke oil in every (almost) tank of gas and avoid gasahol when possible. Actually I do that on the Goldwing too, it has a little rust inside of it. I run dual filters on it.

[markreimer]

If you don't have a leak, don't bother sealing it, there is no need to.

To prevent rusting


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[firebane]

If you don't have a leak, don't bother sealing it, there is no need to.

To prevent rusting


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Keep the tank full

[eigenvector]

I can confirm that strategy doesn't work.

Keeping the tank full is nice in practice, but unless you ride from gas station to gas station it will on average be about 1/2 full the majority of the time.  Couple that with ethanol fuel and you can basically assume water will be in that tank before long.

Naw, if the tank is rusting you need to seal it back up.

I honestly wish you could simply fit the tank with a bladder - lose some capacity but gain a nice impervious container.  I understand why they use steel as the tank material - but I sure wish they would have used aluminum instead.

[b52bombardier1]

Galvanized steel would be more than sufficient.  This cold rolled non galvanized steel from the 70's is very prone to rust and is what most cars and our fuel tanks were made of back then.

Rick

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