Caswell sealer failures? Please report

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Blast the fiberglass tanks. My coating started collapsing from the top/inside of tank. I broke down and got the EMGO steel Roadster tank and had it painted by Brent Budgor, The Vintage Vendor in Vermont, total price close to $1,000 for peace of mind!
 
I used Caswell in my Paul Smart tank after the first one went tits up and bowed and buckled. Its spread again somewhat but the finish is still intact and good. Acerbis made these tanks FRP I think its called Fiberglass reinforced plastic maybe? The stuff is total shite. Of Course its sad in the US we have plentiful resources for petrol and still can't get a good drop of fuel since MTBE has been banned in most states. The ethanol is used a preservative in place of the MTBE, why they think it works is any best guess. I store with track fuel or racegas whenever I can but its not always around. I'm familiar with Puregas.com, but not too many stations close by. I could rant for hours about this garbage stuffed down our throats but all I can say is the Caswell stuff seems to be a band-aid. I'm afraid of what I need to do once its softened enough to be a problem. I run the bike at the track and a fuel cut out issue could spell for a situation I don't want to be in. I lost fuel in a hard corner once before from a float hanging up and it was damn scary.

Sadly an aluminum tank is very expensive now and limited to unavailable for the Paul Smart. Last I checked they were over 2500/per tank. oem is 750 now versed the 1500 when they were new. I don't think the math adds up for an aluminum tank just yet. It had me so sore with Ducati I've not bought a bike from the company since and doubt I ever will unless it has a metal tank. I know KTM and Aprilia have similiar issues with swelling, sad days when our gas destorys our vehicles and the government just shoves it right back down your throat. Not only that it is proven to have a net negative environmental impact, from production to combustion the math only favors the ethanol industry only... :evil: Evil people messing with our babies!!!
 
Rusty bucket said:
I used Caswell in my Paul Smart tank after the first one went tits up and bowed and buckled. Its spread again somewhat but the finish is still intact and good. Acerbis made these tanks FRP I think its called Fiberglass reinforced plastic maybe? The stuff is total shite. Of Course its sad in the US we have plentiful resources for petrol and still can't get a good drop of fuel since MTBE has been banned in most states.
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Couple of things:

In the old days, one could buy pump gas with 100+ octane rating. This was largely achieved by adding tetraethyl lead to gas. This lead additive was cheap, effective, and left deposits on the valve seats that helped cushion and seal the valves. It also dumped thousands of tons of lead into the environment, and we now know lead is bad for us. Lead also ruins catalytic converters by binding with the catalyst (usually platinum or palladium), so it had to go.

MTBE - Methyl tert-butyl ether, was used to replace lead. It also boosts octane, and though doesn't leave deposits on valve seats, increases the oxygen content of gasoline to help in more complete combustion. In the '90s, the US government required gas to have a 2% oxygen content. MTBE is also cheap - it provides a lot of bang for the buck.

By the late '90s, MTBE started showed up in groundwater and municipal water supplies. Turns out that MTBE is worse for people than lead. Besides, the big agra companies and farm lobby were pushing to replace MTBE with ethanol. Therefore, we replaced MTBE with 10% ethanol, and the agra lobby is pushing for E15.

Doesn't matter that our converting millions of bushels of corn into a fuel additive contributed to price spikes on staple grains throughout the world. It also doesn't matter that the US is no longer a net importer of fossil fuels. Ethanol in gas appears to be here to stay.

Goes to prove the old adage, "today's solution is tomorrow's problem"

BTW - plastic tanks found on Triumph, H-D, KTM, Aprilia, and a few others were also affected. The problem with Ducati was in the way the tank was mounted. Rather than be bolted down front and rear, the Ducatis slipped onto projections at the front and were bolted down at the rear. As the tank swelled, it 'pancaked' and would no longer engage with those tabs at the front. My Speed Triple tank also swelled a bit, but was fixed by an allen bolt and grommet at the front, so stayed in place. After to switching to ethanol-free gas, the tank slowly shrank back almost to original size.
 
BillT said:
Rusty bucket said:
It also doesn't matter that the US is no longer a net importer of fossil fuels. .
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The US is a long way off energy self sufficiency as of yet. There is lots of oil and natural gas coming in from Canada, and oil from Opec nations. EIA made the prediction that the US could reduce net imports of fossil fuels to zero by 2028 and possibly as soon as 2019 with extremely high energy prices, but this projection was based on these high energy prices the projection no longer works.

http://www.energyandcapital.com/article ... fuels/4809

Glen
 
Nope-not Dave! said:
Its a sad day! I have several early tube frame Buells and they have this issue as well with their plastic tanks. Not as bad as some but good luck keeping tank decals from bubbling up, or paint peeling or the tanks swelling. The real problem is with Steel tanks that do not have zinc coating or other protections. The water seperates fro the fuel (Because of the alcohol it absorbs water from atmosphere as well) so you end up with seperated water-alcohol- Fuel and as a result the tank rusts out.
I have had relative success with the Bill Hirsch products but fear that any sealer is just a short term fix. I have a number of fiberglass tanks including a NOS long range Proddie racer yellow peril tank and am starting to believe the only solution is cut out the bottoms and insert a metal tank inside. Poser quality with the cool FG tank as styling with a metal tank inside but what else are the options?
Thanks for the tip on the dichloromethane material. I have had a few metal tanks and a couple FG tanks with failed liners. Some softened with Naptha and some MEK but on 2 of them found a paint stripper shop that dipped hot rod bodies and they said they could take care of it. I was mildly alarmed when i found out later they cooked the metal tanks in a OVEN at high heat and apparently it turns the sealer to dust, they then ran them thru their stripper tanks and came out squeaky clean.
These were Triumph preunit tanks and total restores. So at the time there was a industrial coating shop that recoated restuarant pots and pans with some sort of zinc or tin coating. I learned about it from some old school bar and resturant guys who were into vintage bikes as well. Apparently its like hard chroming parts where they dip it, then grind it back to the desired tolerances-dimensions. Many restuarants would apparently do this once a year on certain equipment. So this tinning process is not as hard as chrome and I think it was hot liquid and they just dipped the stuff. But what i do know is there old guys told me to make sure the tanks were fully repaired and sealed, and all body work completed. When you got them back (Approx $100 per tank) they looked like brand new metal roofing. You sanded down the exterior starting with 80 grit and down to 360 and then primed with a tin or galvanized compatible primer. The insides stay nice and clean and no more issues with rust, or pin holes or anything. I suppose IF you had to weld them again that would be a pain, but properly mounted with rubber bits they were never an issue again. I will look but i believe these shops are now gone.
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It used to be standard practice in the commercial food preparation industry to annually hot dip copper pots in a tinning solution. This was
required by health department rules because copper is reactive to acids (such as tomatos). I don't think very many copper cooking pots
are made of copper anymore, or if they have the cooking surfaces are coated with stainless steel. I have been to 5 or 6 food service equipment stores and asked salespersons where I can get "tinning" done. They all stare incredulously at me and have no idea what I'm
talking about.
 
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