Coating Gas Tank

I am working on stripping and repainting a gas tank for my 80 Xj650, the inside of the tank had some slight surface rust. I was given a kit of kreem to line the inside of the tank. I did the first two steps of prep and rinse with MEK. When the tank dried it flash rusted, so even though i didnt want to i tried to line it. Come to find out that the cold winters and hot summers this kit endured turned the kreem into an elastic blob lying in the bottom of my tank. So i went to lowes and bought a gallon of MEK and left sit in the tank for about 4hrs, aggitating and stirring with a long screwdriver. I removed the MEK, which successsfully removed all of the kreem. Now it looks like it may have removed the gray finish from inside the tank itself on the sides. Is there anything i can do to coat the tank with relining it because i am to the point that i want nothing to do with these epoxy liners

 

Redkote has worked well for me. Go to ebay motors,and enter redkote in the search block. Easy ,if not tedious, to apply. Fuels containing ethanol may remove some of the red dye, but should not affect redkote otherwise.

 

Why not try putting a hand full of drywall screws in the tank with some solvent and agitating the crap out of it. This should break away any loose rust from the inside of the tank. Keep the tank full of gasoline, preferably gas without methanol in it. My XJ tank had a hole in one of the rear corners which caused my panties to get in a wad. I spent hours on the web looking at coating systems and reading all the real life stories I could find. The result? None of the coatings can be relied on to last forever. They all seem to fail eventually. Sometimes with catastrophic results like ruined tanks.

So, I took some JB Weld and patched the holes from the outside and have never had any problems in over 2 years. When I applied the JB I forced it through the little holes and into the tank creating a mushroom type plug. At least that's my theory.

Minor surface rust is not a problem as long as it is light enough that it can't flake off and plug your fuel filter.

 

I went to Lowes and got some concrete cleaner. It did a nice job and left a slight film inside so it didn't flash rust. I then used mineral spirits to wash the tank out. Then used my air hose to blow dry it and it looked like new inside. No rust has come back so far in that tank.

MN

 

From my experience send it to a radiator shop the results are amazing

 

i have a little rust in the tank but its really minor nothing that would flake off or anything, its pretty much only by the filler neck. it hasnt given me any problems so far should i worry about it or just leave it be

 

Just at the neck I would not worry all that much but do no run on reserve just in case its more then just the neck and make sure you install some inline filters.

 

I took another look at my tank today to realize that its just some surface rust in the corner near the filler neck, everything else is nice and clean from the acid, etch, and MEK. So from what i understand keep gasoline with a stabilizer, system cleaner like seafoam will help prevent it from rusting again. I have another stupid question, but this is the first motorcycle i have ever owned, when do you all usually stop filling the tank up. I have filled mine up a couple times and when i tilt the bike up, out comes that gas. Im having the tank repainted so i dont want gas spilled all over the new paint