Rusty Gas Tank

Since the bike has sat for a while the fuel tank is a lovely reddish brown on the inside. Is there a chemical solution or a method of stripping the interior of the tank?

Phosphoric acid is the classic to stabilize rust before paint or sealer. Other methods exist electro to chelation chemistry but over kill. Method is put sharp steep objects in tank that can be retrieved ok the shake chit out of it with the phos acid solution till bored, then dump out, flush with H20 the acetone a couple time til DRY and clean. Optional to put in Caswell's 2 part Novalac sealer with decent thicknes 1/16" at least, let set up in sun or heat a couple days and portected forever more until crashed and burnt. Boozed gas rusts insides faster than old gasolines and separated to water layer if stored long, life a season so so.

I have found that a straight vinegar soak(about a buck a gallon) for a few days, makes it nice and shiny inside.

It will flash rust pretty quickly. A mist of wd40 or just fill it with gas and keep it that way.

i agree. gentler, better for the environment and not toxic. no nasty fumes. let mine set for a week as i was out of town. save the vinegar and use to flush out the tank at the end. handful of screws worked great and i filtered the vinegar through a towel. give it the wd40 soak and slosh all around. all done and costs under $10 bucks. be sure to fill it to the top. norton tanks hold about 3 gallons so buy three jugs.

This stuff is great and lasts a long time.

http://www.evaporust.com/

Whitworth Ranch said:

This stuff is great and lasts a long time.

http://www.evaporust.com/

Click to expand...

This stuff sounds great, but where can I obtain it in the UK/Europe please :?:

I dont know if it is widely "accepted" but I used some pool acid muriatic in a tank and it cleaned the rust off bigtime. It also ate right through the pot metal petcock... Once I used a plastic plug in the fuel screw it was great.... Only for about 10 min and dumping it thats another story. Cheap and available if you have a swimming pool.

Muratic acid will work, but I wouldn't go there. Concrete cleaning solution. Trouble is as soon as you take it out, it rusts up immediately. Try the vinegar after you remove what you can with dry wall screws, whatever. I cleaned my oil tank with dry wall screws and WD40 rotating it in a spackle bucket for about 2 days. It came our real clean, and once the oil went in, no problem, except I did find a screw later. Maybe you can figure out a way to vibrate the tank or rotate it with screws in it for a day or so. Think outside the box.





Dave
69S

I'm surprised that someone hasn't mentioned the electrolysis method using Arm & Hammer washing powder and a 12V battery charger.
I used it on a 1981 Honda CB750F tank and it works very well. Do a Google search and there are also YouTube videos.

Here's one....http://thekneeslider.com/archives/2008/ ... gas-tanks/