Tank cleaning 101.5

Soapy water, a couple of pieces of chain, and a Chevy truck.





The rear of the truck is jacked up and I'm alternating using "low 1" and reverse to rotate both directions. The parking brake is partly set to control the rotation speed. Yes, it's a pickup with an automatic -- quit laughing -- it was almost free.

There is an album here ---> Chevy Rotisserie with more images and a small (file size AND resolution) video shot with a cell phone.

Wait, here's the video. It doesn't show up on my barely flash enabled Linux machine so y'all let me know if you can see it and if not I'll just edit it out of this post. I can view it fine from the "album" link because my system opens an external app to play it.

VIDEO LINK REMOVED --- PLEASE VISIT THE ALBUM PAGE TO VIEW IT (no controls and it was annoying to have it start every time I visit this thread :lol: )

A bad POR-15 sealer job was done on the tank. I think the stripper wasn't rinsed completely out and caused the bod to fail. The last couple of pics are of the chain and some of the smaller flake of nasty crap that was coming out of the tank. I peeled out some fairly large sheets with my fingers but didn't take pics.

This was a "quick and dirty" way to rotate the tank for a first cleaning. I really need to build a rotisserie "table" that will allow me to rotate the tank "end over end front to back" as well as "end over end sideways" (which is what the truck is doing). Motorcycle tanks are too irregular shaped to get the chain to hit everywhere without doing that.

I should be able to get it clean enough to ride (with frequent filter changes) like this and I have another POR15 kit to do it properly when I make a better rotisserie.

Gerald

 

A+ for creativity :mrgreen:

 

This procedure might not catch on though, as the cost of fuel to run the chevy will climb every 50 rotations of the tank.

 

That was a concern. The tank spent about 30 - 45 minutes rotating over 2 cleaning cycles. That probably cost me about $5 USD running at idle.

Maybe the new version should use a bicycle? 8)

 

The chain didn't dent the tank? I was thinking dry wall screws, coarse sand, small sharp stones and soapy water, and actually driving the pick-up.

What kind of chain, and pic's inside the tank, please . . .

 

Just a couple of random chunks of chain thet were laying on the shop floor. No new dents.

I do need to use something other than chain later though. I'm thinking 9/16" hex nuts for the sharper edges. I would NEVER use small screws because there are so many sharp folds in a MC tank. Some are liable to get wedged in tight corners with no hope of retrieval. Same for sand, you'd never get it all out of the tank

And no to driving the truck. You may get dents that way. It needs to rotate VERY slowly. The speedo on the truck (transmission sensor operated) showed barely 1mph when it "sounded right". Any faster and you would either

A) sling the abrasive bits from one end to the other -- HARD -- causing dents (bumps actually) and not really scraping the sides,
or
B) sling the abrasive out to the "high point" where it would stay for the entire drive, doing no cleaning at all.

I'll try to get pics inside the tank this evening. About to head to the hardware store to get some bits to try and mount my new Dyna coils.

 

Hummmmm.....what about strapping it to the agitator of a washing machine? If you got an old one from a yard sale or something...you wouldnt have to fight the wife to try it.....??

 

The agitator of a washing machine wouldn't get everywhere. The tank needs to flip. I'll keep poking around and build something that can be run with an electric motor.

No inside tank pics. Can't get the lens pointed at it and get light in there too.

But, it's ugly still. This is SE Texas, flash rust starts about 10 seconds after you dump the water out. Plus I haven't used the acid yet so there's still a lot of the old flaky sealer in there.

I'll have a spare tank on the way soon so I can stick whichever is best on the bike while I spend a proper amount of time cleaning and sealing the other one.

 

No disrespect, but this has redneck written all over it. I love it!

 

you went through all that trouble to get the sealer out and your going to put it in again ?

 

You did note the "SOUTH East Texas" part, right?

I'm an upscale Redneck though. I bought a 2400 square foot building (with a big hole in the roof) to put all my non-running cars inside.

That POR15 tank sealer is *gorgeous* when it's done right. And darn near indestructible. It's like paint-on steel. Doing it right when he tank is old and crusty can take a weeks worth of long days though.

Anyone who buys a *new* tank I would suggest acid-etching the inside to roughen it up and using the sealer to make it last a bit longer than the 30 years these old tanks have suffered.

 

Red green would be proud. Backwoods engineering at it's best.

 

A beautiful approach, phorce!... as a fellow south Texan I appreciate the art involved! I am right now doing a tank in prep for POR-15 and am shaking 5098 BBs in it by hand (I dropped 2 on the floor).

The last tank I had to do, I wrapped securely in a sleeping bag and put in the clothes dryer on tumble, no heat for a couple of hours. It did a fine job, but didn't go over well with the management!

Oh yeah, another approach recommended by a friend which has the same kind of appeal is to wrap it in foam and duct tape (duh!) and drag it along behind the riding mower...

Rock (and roll) on!

 

I just finished mounting the Dyna coils (no cutting,welding, or other hazardous shenanigans --- just 4 L brackets, some different length bolts, and sore fingers --- pictures in a new thread later).

While working on the coils I had to keep setting the tank back on and I needed a place to put it between test fittings.

I grabbed a chunk of scrap plywood.

As I look at the tank sitting on that plywood I can already picture the cleaning mount. A piece of (guessing size) 1.5" schedule 40 mounted on a block to raise it up for the front tank mounts and a hole drilled at the back for a bolt. Then I'd just need to find the 3 balance points and mount screw plates to hold a piece of 2" threaded black iron pipe to use as an axle.

I'm lazy, I don't want to have to shake by hand. Very few people realize how much work it takes to be lazy though.

I still prefer nuts or other objects with semi-sharp edges. I bought a couple of boxes of 9/16 and 3/8 nuts to use in the tank then toss in the parts box.

I'd be worried about BB's getting wedged in some of the folds and staying inside. They get covered with POR15 but if they're raised enough that the covering is thin then vibration could break them through the coating and leave a hole showing to bare metal.

OK, I just proofread this the 3rd time and had to make corrections every time. Any other errors will have to stay. The weather plus fighting with the tight fit on the new coils has the fingers a bit befuddled (yay Arthritis -go, go go!).

Out for now.

 

Well, getting twitchy to ride, I took the tank to a radiator shop to have it "boiled" out because it was going to take WEEKS of tumbling and rinsing to get the bad sealer job out.

It got turned into a lawn sprinkler. It was rusted WAY worse than I thought.

I would suggest that all of you with 30 year old bikes buy the POR15 sealer kit then take your tank and have it "boiled" out (actually, acid cleaned). Then put the sealer in. The POR15 will seal up pinholes. Mine had a couple of near pencil sized holes that the radiator shop soldered up for me. And he gave me a Haynes for the XJ650 that he had no use for -- all for $25.

Make sure thank is DRY DRY DRY before you use the sealer. I'll post pics of how I'm drying mine in a bit.

Edit to add pics. The bag has a hole in the bottom that is taped over the fuel inlet and the petcock is out allowing some flow through.Works great for VW tanks but on them the "air-out" hole is as big as the "air-in" hole.