Regarding a steel tank; a simple question

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Gary

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Don't scoff:

I'd like to know WHY someone would coat an otherwise brand new STEEL tank that had no interior (tank) issues in need of addressing? TIA, Gary

***P.S. went to a Norton club meeting last Saturday, sat next to and spoke with T.C. Christenson for a couple of hours, chatted about 'Hogslayer', etc. Cool dude, autographed and gave me an old 1970-71 black and white pic of him winning a race. Thought of scanning and using it as my AV... but would then have to figure out how to reduce it, sigh...
 
Why? To keep it from rusting I suppose. E10 fuel promotes tank rust by pulling moisture in from the air. Keeping your tank full of fuel over the winter used to work fairly well for preventing rust, but no more. :?

Another reason would be to seal small leaks. Sealing the tank can work well for that, at least until the coating breaks down.

Reportedly even the Caswell epoxy can be attacked and destroyed by some of the new fuel formulations though (ask Jim Comstock about that), so maybe keeping it uncoated and dealing with the rust when it develops would be a better strategy.

Debby
 
The reason is the mfg's do not leak test or pressure test.
It's just insurance to protect the cost of your paint job
 
Reportedly even the Caswell epoxy can be attacked and destroyed by some of the new fuel formulations though (ask Jim Comstock about that), so maybe keeping it uncoated and dealing with the rust when it develops would be a better strategy.
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Guess I never really thought of just doing that, but that might be the best way to maintain the tank yet avoid the potential of a gooey catastrophe, wouldn't it?
 
Luckily ethanol is not fully immersed in this region yet. There is a monopoly on gas in my town. Probably 75% of the gas stations are owned by the same company, and they don't use any ethanol yet. If I do happen upon a pump with the sticker I'll usually go somewhere else. There is a new gas station owned by walmart that opened here. Gas is about 20 cents/gallon cheaper than at the monopoly gas stations so it's usually packed!... Lines of cars waiting to fill up, but the one time I went they had the ethanol sticker on the pump so I never went back.


This is offtopic of course, but that's how I feel about gas additives. When it's the standard I guess I'll be forced to use it, but right now I still have a choice not to :wink:
 
Well, folks, I guess I'll tell you WHY I asked that question. For the obvious reasons!

See, everyone here talks about the Caswel, POR-15, Kreem, etc... and we DO know that they WILL all fail over time. But as these sealers FAIL (dissolve/leech away)... they must transit the combustion chamber.

I purchased a '73 commando, steel tank, sealer in it. Had a hell of a time getting it started at the PO's place. Three trips, I finally got it started as I suspected problems with the plugs and, once replaced, fired it up instantly. Bike ran great for a few weeks, but I then allowed it to sit a couple weeks.

It's fouling the plugs in the same characteristic way of a failed 'glass tank. That is, the plugs are being covered with a film of 'something'... that, due to it coming from a steel tank... can ONLY be this inside sealer.

Correct? There's nothing else that it could be. Hence the question 'why would you seal a steel tank' with a sealer that you know will dissolve/fail.....
In any case, I look forward to your comments and/or insights on this issue. Would seem to me that this would have come up for debate, but so far have found nothing exactly matching it.
 
Gary said:
Correct? There's nothing else that it could be. Hence the question 'why would you seal a steel tank' with a sealer that you know will dissolve/fail.....
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Sealers are not guaranteed to fail on steel tanks. I have Bill Hirsch's stuff in my Roadster tank for 6 years now and it's just like the day I applied it. I had some rust developing in the tank bottom and took the opportunity of a repaint to seal it according to instructions. It's hard to know if you're experiencing sealer breakdown on your steel tank without seeing it first hand.

Why these coatings fail so predictably in a fiberglass tank I really don't know, maybe because the FG pores absorb stuff that doesn't clean off and the sealer never sticks propperly.

People report that new steel tanks from Pakistan can leak or seep fuel from new. If I had one of those I'd seal it too.
 
maylar said:
Gary said:
Correct? There's nothing else that it could be. Hence the question 'why would you seal a steel tank' with a sealer that you know will dissolve/fail.....
Click to expand...

Sealers are not guaranteed to fail on steel tanks. I have Bill Hirsch's stuff in my Roadster tank for 6 years now and it's just like the day I applied it. I had some rust developing in the tank bottom and took the opportunity of a repaint to seal it according to instructions. It's hard to know if you're experiencing sealer breakdown on your steel tank without seeing it first hand.

Why these coatings fail so predictably in a fiberglass tank I really don't know, maybe because the FG pores absorb stuff that doesn't clean off and the sealer never sticks propperly.

People report that new steel tanks from Pakistan can leak or seep fuel from new. If I had one of those I'd seal it too.
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Hi Dave,

The problem with fiberglass tanks isn't that the coating doesn't stick...it's that the sealer doesn't stop ethanol from attacking the resin. Could be non-stick or incomplete coverage or just that the sealer doesn't create a barrier. Results are blistering of the outside gel coat and I would suspect eventual leakage. Bottom line is current fuels give unacceptable results when using fiberglass tanks and there doesn't seem to be a fix to retain these tanks.
 
maylar said:
People report that new steel tanks from Pakistan can leak or seep fuel from new. If I had one of those I'd seal it too.
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Get them pressure tested and weld up any leaks. They're bare anyways.
 
Dave: that's a good point about sealing a steel tank that has developed rust in it. I have done that myself in the past. I'm guitly of ASSUMING that this tank was sealed from when it was new... well, now I can look forward to cleaning this partucular (unknown) sealer crap out of it.

This is so discouraging!
Why so damned hard just to get CLEAN FUEL, Lord!??! :(
 
Its pretty hard to not find ethanol blend here in Australia, usually 10% content. I've got an original steel Roadster tank and its got some minor rust inside from when it sat in a barn for 5 years. After scrubbing with kerosine and a million small screws n washers and rinsing in methanol, 7 years later it hasn't gotten worse. What I do is add a spoonful of Moray Upper Cylinder Lube when I fill the tank and I prefer to keep the tank full between rides, usually on the weekend. I think the UCL stuff has some benefit in E fuel, I'm not happy with some talk of liner resins turning to goo.

Mick
 
Pelican,

Since you're in North Carolina too, you should know the state does not require gas with ethanol to be labeled. I think we're one of the few states that doesn't. Makes it pretty tough to avoid. I found a couple of websites that can give you an idea of who has ethanol and who doesn't, but it's not easy to determine here.
 
Remember this ethanol thing is pretty recent. We got many years of good service from sealers befor that, and properly applied the indise of the tank would look great and stay clean for many years.
In the last year one of my many year sealed tanks started coming off in strips, I noticed it while fueling. I'd been running ethanol for over a year and it just slowly ate away at it I guess.
Right now I prefer to leave a tank bare and clean, I don't use glass tanks at all since I had them eat the outer paint years back. I'm expecting the chemists to come though with some new good sealers soon.
 
I would doubt if there is any non-ethanol gas in NC. Here in VA you cannot find non-ethanol except at the airport (avgas), every pump in the state is marked with the ethanol badge, must be a state law. I have asked at several stations and they say it is not available. I too am in a quandary and wish someone would come up with a good fix for the F/G tanks. I may just run to the airport all the time with my 5-gal cans and restrict my travels to what I can do locally with my tiny Roadster tank. It doesn't even sound like a reasonably priced steel tank is a much better option with their rusting and sealing issues and an original steel tank is way to dear for me. I still wonder what the boat people do, they have F/G tanks too.

Dave
69S
 
Nelson said:
Pelican,

Since you're in North Carolina too, you should know the state does not require gas with ethanol to be labeled. I think we're one of the few states that doesn't. Makes it pretty tough to avoid. I found a couple of websites that can give you an idea of who has ethanol and who doesn't, but it's not easy to determine here.
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I didn't know that!!!!!! NC is so backwards in so many ways. Another reason on a long list to make me want to move
 
Ethanol is very popular with refiners for a couple of reasons.
1) in the US ethanol is heavily subsidized, and costs refiners about half of what gasoline costs
2) ethanol has an octane rating of about 130, so adding 10% ethanol to low octane gas raises the octane rating nearly 5 points

This means that refiners can take 82-89 octane gas and bump it up to regular to premium for less than 90% of what it would cost to actually make premium grade gas.

The fact that ethanol is a very strong solvent and can have disastrous effects on any motor vehicle made before 1985 or so in North America is beside the point. Nobody actually drives a '65 Ford Mustang, BSA Spitfire, or pre-1973 Norton, do they?
 
There have been many threads about ethanol and fiberglass tanks. Many about poor quality metal tanks from overseas. Rust seems to be a problem in stock tanks.

Has anyone built tanks from carbon fiber?

Would it solve the ethanol problem, the rust problem, and maybe the poor quality problem as well?

I have no dog in this fight as I have a stock roadster tank in good condition which I love (well, let’s say I have a strong affection to it).
 
Diablouph said:
There have been many threads about ethanol and fiberglass tanks. Many about poor quality metal tanks from overseas. Rust seems to be a problem in stock tanks.

Has anyone built tanks from carbon fiber?

Would it solve the ethanol problem, the rust problem, and maybe the poor quality problem as well?

I have no dog in this fight as I have a stock roadster tank in good condition which I love (well, let’s say I have a strong affection to it).
Click to expand...

Someone could make new fiberglass tanks from modern resins which are impervious from alcohol. CF requires a vacuum oven, I think.
 
Given the price of classic parts, I would think that Carbon Fiber Molding would be cost effective.
 
Diablouph said:
There have been many threads about ethanol and fibreglass tanks. Many about poor quality metal tanks from overseas. Rust seems to be a problem in stock tanks.

Has anyone built tanks from carbon fibre?

Would it solve the ethanol problem, the rust problem, and maybe the poor quality problem as well?

I have no dog in this fight as I have a stock roadster tank in good condition which I love (well, let’s say I have a strong affection to it).
Click to expand...

Carbon fibre will not help IF the resin used is the same as the one used for fibreglass. The regular polyester resins are sensitive to ethanol, the epoxy resins less so. Take a look here http://www.trialscentral.com/forums/lof ... 22697.html some good info and a somewhat bleak future for all types of tanks with fuel containing ethanol due to its hygroscopic nature.

Jean
 
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