Rusty Fuel Tank Interior

[montmil]

I wonder if Coca Cola will work.  I know it sounds like a myth but I knew a fellow in a boat yard in Trinidad who could not get his through hull fittings to close..they were totally corroded in the open position.  He tried all kinds of rust removers and as a last resort he tried Coke.  He left it 24 hours and voila the through hulls opened.  He then took them apart and they were clean as a whistle.

Has anyone tried coke in a gas tank.  If not I think I'll try molasses if I need to.

(Hey, maybe molasses is the secret ingredient in coke  )

My late father never could pass up what he felt was a "bargain".

He once bought a Farmall Cub tractor with a sorta seized side valve flat head engine. A mechanic friend suggested he pull the head and pour a couple bottles of Coke down the bores!

After several days and a couple cases of Coke, the acidic soda pop ate through the rust at the piston rings/cylinder wall contact. They suck out the belly washer Coke, oil the bores and she fired off!

In grade school, we did an experiment with Coke and raw beef. The student-maintained puddle of Coke on the steak ate clean through the raw meat. Rot your belly, perhaps?

Sing along with me.  Oh, I'd like to buy Taliban-Man a Coke...  

Monte

[Bob_Roller]

I brought the LS tank to work yesterday, and filled it with concentrated citric acid .

I should have waited until I was back to work, to clean the tank .

The citric acid cleaned the tank, without turning the bare metal dark .


I would highly recommend using it, over another acid, if you can obtain it .

I'm going to give it another day, with the tank turned upside down, so all of the rust is removed from the top metal surface .

[azcycle]

The gas tank on the 76 Goldwing I was bringing back to life was an awful, rusty, varnished mess on the inside. If you're familiar with old 'wings you know the fuel tank is wedged in the frame between the engine and the rear tire, and removal requires taking the entire rear of the bike apart.

I didn't have the time or the motivation to do that, so I used electrolysis to clean the tank.  It took a couple "batches" to get it clean, but the results were absolutely amazing.

Here is the procedure I followed:  
http://thekneeslider.com/archives/2008/10/21/how-to-get-rid-of-rust-in-motorcycle-gas-tanks/

And here are a couple pics:

Before Electrolysis:


After a couple bouts of electrolysis:

[Bob_Roller]

That before picture, looked like the interior of the LS tank .

I finished up the tank at work yesterday, I drained out the citric acid, flushed the tank with hot water, and even before the tank was cold, it 'flash' rusted in a few minutes .

Enough to make me not want to add the final liner to it .

I'll try phosphoric acid this week, and if the rust comes back like it did with the citric acid, I'm just going to use the tank 'as is' .

[azcycle]

The 'wing tank started to flash rust, too. I decided not to coat it, so after a final electrolysis run-through, I took a blow dryer set to "hot" and just stuck it in the gas filler opening and let it run for about 20 minutes. Heated everything up and dried it out fast without the flash rust. Then just filled it with gasoline...

[Bob_Roller]

I put a gallon of phosphoric acid in the tank today, removed the 'flash' rust deposit in about 30 minutes .

Rinsed the tank out with fresh water, inserted an air nozzle into the tank, blew it out for 45 minutes, a bit of rust came back, proceeded to put the tank under a heat lamp for an hour, let it cool off, then added the POR 15 sealer .

This sealer, looked like an extremely thin silver metal flake paint .

After assuring all parts of the tank were coated, the fuel filler drain tube that runs through the tank was the only area, that was a bit difficult to get coated .

Drained the remaining liner out, and from the looks of it, you could probably coat two R65 size tanks with the motorcycle kit, that's 8 fluid ounces (237 ml) of sealing material .

Need to let it sit for 96 hours before doing anything to it .

A couple of days in the Arizona sun, should speed things up a bit !!!!!

We'll see how it turns out .