whats the best process for cleaning a rust tank?

I searched around but I cant find anything for a rusty tank. The other day something went wrong and I was leaking gas through my carbs where the air cleaner is. Not sure whats going on but at the same time I took a good look in the tank as it was empty or akmost empty. The tank is pretty rusty and when I was looking at my fuel filter (clear glass type) I could see some rust in there. The bad news is that some probably made it past the filter and in the carbs. So is there any do it yourself way to treat a rust tank other then buy a new one?
Also do you think it would be possible for some rust to have lodged in the carbs somewhere ( perhaps in the float) and that may have caused my leaking problem? It was only leaking out of 2 carbs not all 4. It`s the carbs on the left side viewing from the back.

 

I did a little bit more searching on here and found that phosphoric acid might be the best way to clean the tank. I still need some input on the leaking carbs out of 2 carbs only.

 

heres a picture of the filter and the inside of tank.

 

Here's some ideas- -
* Thread together some nuts and washers on a wire, (or other objects)hake the heck out of your tank, retrieve.
* Get some gas and a coffee filter, set-up a siphon and stand your tank up.
Siphon out the bottom (back) to clear loose rust.
* Use a paper filter, not sintered metal or screen
* Tap on your carbs to re-set the needle/seats- - you may need to pull them to flush them out.
* Look into electric tank cleaning at home- - requires a plastic funnel, a battery charger and a coat hanger.

 

Timetoride--Do you think it`s possible that 2 of the seats were stuck and thats why I leaked gas out of the carbs? I got the tank off and I plan on cleaning it out.

 

well i got my seca with a bad tank and the thing i did for it was spent $70 at a rad shop they cleaned it out totaly and put in liner now for as long as i own the bike i will never have to worry about rust in the gas ( mind you that is canadian $ not sure what you pay down there for something like that

 

4 parts water to 1 part molasses. Can be dumped in sewer, as it is all organic material, as long as you let the gas evaporate out first.

Electrolysis also works well.

Caswell tank sealer to finish.

Local Yamaha tech says the molasses brew will eat through just about anything. Regular blackstrap table molasses, although you should do a bit of research on that. I seem to remember something about it needing to have the sulfur still in it. The mechanic said the Caswell tank sealer is so good, he sealed up an RZ350 tank that you could "see your boot through" after it had been sandblasted, and is still in use today.

 

POR-15 Tank Restore kit. Used it on my bike and it worked great.

 

POR-15 Sealer kit for me too.. Comes in 3 parts..
Rust remover and all round tank cleaner.
Metal ready to prepare the metal for the paint
POR-15 .. Even if there's a little rust left it binds to that and seals it so it can't go no further..

Had a hole in my tank that the PO had tried to seal shut with a welding rod and made it worse.. No more hole now.

Good stuff.

 

For the whole discussion x10 just search for "rust in the tank."

Mildly rusted tanks can be simply cleaned; if there has been enough rust to actually start to do damage, then a sealing kit would be the hot tip.

Personally, I've had real good results with phosphoric acid (although it's getting harder to find) twice now but neither tank was all that horrible.

Electrolysis apparently works really well too, someone recently posted pics.

 

I'd go for a sealing kit every time, even before any damage appears. you only need to do it one time and then you never have to worry about rust or damage again.

 

I've seen too many sealing-kit jobs gone bad; I'm the proud owner of one myself (PO) but that tank is being replaced. With a solid one that was phosphoric-acid treated.

When a sealing kit works correctly, yes, it's a good thing. Unfortunately they don't always work correctly, which of course depends on the quality of the work done using the kit, as well as the kit itself.

Personally I classify sealing as a final solution, not a preventive measure.

 

You make a fair point Fitz. But you could say that about anything.

If you take your time and follow the instructions carefully you should get good results if the thing your using is of a decent quality, if you rush and take shortcuts or buy substandard stuff, then likely as not, you'll end up with a botch job at best, and a disaster at worse.

 

I think my tank is more like a mild or surface rust area type of tank. The problem is that some piece of loose rust made there way into my carbs I think. I will need to look closer at my carbs and see what may have got in there. I searched for "rust in tank" and other key words and it seems like there are so many oppinions on how to treat it. I`ll figure that out but do you all think that it`s possible that my gas leak was at all rust related? I`m wondering if rust made it into the needles and and caused them not to seat or something.Like I said it only happened on 2 carbs.

 

O.K I went to a couple of places and they sell a 3 step kit for like $45. I would rather put the money in my carbs but if the tank is letting rust out then whats the use right. So what do you all think about trying something like a radiator rust kit. I know there like $5 and they seem to work pretty good. The one I saw was made by "Gumout" and I have used to it flush and old dirty radiator in the past. Is this a bad idea or do you think it`s worth a shot?

 

Ive done alot of reading and it looks like phosphoric acid is the way to go. Call me crazy but I`m off to Walmart to buy a new fuel filter and some phosphoric acid or (coke). I think I will buy a couple bottles (2 liter) of coke and put them in the tank overnite and see what happens. It might be an o.k way of treating it who knows.

 

Phosphoric acid is sold as "concrete cleaner" in most big-box home improvement stores (Lowes, Home Depot.) But you have to read the lable, new environmentally friendly (read useless) concrete cleaners have begun to appear that don't have any phosphoric acid in them.

I don't know that Coca-Cola or even Molasses will have quite the same effect.

 

Its only been about 30 minutes or so and I see a ton of crap floating on the surface. I`m not saying coke is a merricle cure but I doubt i`ll drinking it anymore based off of what I have seen so far. Well I guess that means I have to drink more beers in place of coke LOL. Anyway i will let it sit for a few hours then swoosh it around a little more and drain it. Ill keep you guys posted on what happens. Worse case is I wasted $3 but it is worth the shot.

 

I found a product called Evapo rust. Seems to work like magic. I only bought a one liter jug of it, but you can get larger jugs. Up here in Canada you can find it at Crappy Tire and a couple other places, it is an enviro friendly product, but it does seem to work.

Though to the OP, yeah Coke is a great acid, but it's got lots of other crap in it I wouldn't want in my tank. All that crud you see coming up could more than likely have been removed by just rinsing your tank out.

When I started mine, I rinsed it out with water, dropped in 6 thousand BBs, shook the bloody hell out of it, rinsed some more (water came out brown) shook some more, and now I am letting that evapo rust get to the stuff that I couldnt knock off. Got a shop vac to suck out any residue and BBs.

What really sucks is that I dropped the tank and put a nice dent in an other wise perfectly dent free tank! "Ah! What a Put!", I thought to myself! Well, I guess another problem I am going to have to learn to fix.

 

When I was in Brazil a couple of years ago, I watched a guy clean a carburetta with cola.. Seemed to work quite well, he washed it after with water and put it all back together, started first time.. Better than my recent effort.

 

Some of the ways I have heard of:

(Heard of, ... NOT endorsing)

Box of Hex Nuts; Shake.
Aquarium Gravel; Shake.

Electrolysis; Coat Hanger, Rubber Stopper & Battery Charger.

Muriatic Acid; Dangerous, Environmental Concerns.

 

Well I emptied out the coke after about 2.5 hours and much to my surprise most of the rust was gone. Getting everything out is turning out to be a pain but it looks like the loose crap is off and even a good chunk of the surface rust is gone. I think I will work my butt off trying to get it dry then put the tank back on and drive the thing. At the end of the driving season I might take the tank off again and send it out to be treated.But for now I should be in better shape then I was in yesterday. Now for the fun part trying to lean out my cyclinders a bit. Different topic but my my plugs are black so Is till have some work to do.

 

I've tried Aquarime gravel.... not great, it was treated with something and left a residue that was a major PITA to get rid of......

Tried the molasses trick, see above,

Electrolysis, time consuming, but effective....

Muriactric (Hydrochloric), effective, but will flash rust VERY quickly
Phosphoric better choice (but pure not coke, you don't want the sugar and caramel)

 

zaghost I bought some "CLR" from home depot and I am going to add that as well. I will let it sit for a few hours then clear it out. By the way love your avatar I have that as my background on my cell phone and also as my ring tone LOL.

 

hehe yep, Marvin Rox

Just gotta keep an eye out for Duck Dodgers on here ... Right Fitz?

I was gonna try CLR, let me know how it goes

 

the problem with CLR is the same as with most acids, you will get almost immediate flash rusting.

Phosphoric acid won't cause that, at the very most you'll get some greenish patches of zinc oxide.

I tried nuts, aquarium gravel, etc (what a BEOTCH to get out) on the first tank before using concrete cleaner; I just went directly to phosphoric acid on the tank I just did and it worked great. Neither was HORRIBLY rusted though.

 

Ill post an after pic a little later today. It looks a little bit better but the clr did not change it much from when I finished with the coke. I wish my local home depot had phosphoric acid because I would try it. Anyway the good news is that alot of the loose rust did come off and what I am left with is some fine surface rust. I removed the gas tank float to get a small shop vac nozzle in there and try to suck out anything that was loose. It looks like there is a gasket but also some sort of silicone was added I assume to stop leaks. Do you think I need anything other then then the gasket? Also i`m going to add a shut off valve .

 

digital camera is broke so it may be a few days till I can get a pic.

 

If the rust is gone I would go ahead and put some sealant in there. You don't want to have to repeat this process in the future because of new rust.

After messing around w/ electrolysis and the POR-15 chemical that removes the sealant already in the tank, I took it to a radiator shop, got it sand blasted and put the POR-15 sealant in myself. Never been happier.

I wish the TIME I spent trouble shooting my tank went into my carbs, well worth the extra money to the shop.

 

I would order a new fuel cap gasket assembly from chacal, and rebuild your gas cap. Petcock (and fuel sender if so equipped) have their own o-ring (and possibly gasket.)

Phosphoric Acid: (I think it came from Home Depot, might have been Lowes.)

 

I went to Lowes,and home depot today and they had nothing. Home depot had some stuff with phophoric acid but it was real low concentrate. I hope the effort I made will get me through the driving season. I have a friend that I met when I was restoring my Porsche 914 who told me about this place locally that did tank treatments for 914`s so I might hit him up and see if he would do this for me( probably in november). I think I did the clunk test today and I found that the cylinders with the long needles moved free. and dropped free when I removed the big spring from the upper hat. I also noticed that 3 of the needles moved free in the cylinder and 1 did not. It feels like the needles are spring loaded so I will have to do a little research on why 1 was different. I hope I only need to address 1 and not 3.

 

When I was doing the clunk test I read that the springs should be replaced all at the same time, not individually. It took me a few goes to make sure I sanded the barrels enough. Have you read this one?

http://xjbikes.com/Forums/viewtopic/t=1 ... clean.html

I think it is the church of clean that talks about all the different sandpapers to use when polishing those brass cylinders.

What got me was when i would place the cylinder back in the chamber, sometimes I would accidentally touch the cylinder, this was enough to give it a little stick.

Sanding the chamber is extremely important as well. Make sure the strokes are up/down, not side side...all things I had to learn over a month long, tedious process

 

I have used "The Works" toilet bowl cleaner before. Worked great for me. It also is a rust remover. I got is at wally world for under $2. I used about 2/3 rds of the bottle on a 550 tank I did for my buddy. So if you do try it on your tank I would use the whole thing. Let it soak for about 5 hrs then flush it GOOD with water. Then use some MEK Methyl Ethyl Ketone or Acitone. It will remove the water from your tank and then you can move on to the sealer. I bought a kit at the auto store for $40 and I had enough stuff to do 4 750 tanks if I wanted to. May not be the best way but that is what worked for me.

 

The works is nasty stuff. My daughters boyfriend came over and we made a works bomb (you tube it) so I think I will avoid that LOL too much temptation to make something go "boom".

 

Tomato juice or paste is what i used in my tank. Just bought a quart of it for a few bucks from the grocery store and poured in the tank. Let it set for a couple hours, or days if you wish and it will get rid of all your surface rust. The natural acids in tomatoes eats the rust away leaving you with a really nasty looking paste that you can just dump in the yard.

 

I did the acid routine on my Seca tank. It worked good, but messy and you have the acid to get rid of. I used electrolysis on my XS400 tank. It worked just as good. It took longer, but I didn't have to deal with the acid.

Here's is the link to the post I made about the electrolysis method:

http://xjbikes.com/Forums/viewtopic/t=24846.html

 

+1 I did the same thing

 

Alright, so if I'm reading this right I need phosphoric (hydrochloric) acid as the first step, then mek to rinse out the acid? After that some type of sealant? If I'm on the right track let me know, I've got a 650 tank begging to be cleaned.

 

you are better off getting a kit, like POR15, it's all in there, cleaning, de-rusting & sealing.

 

Phosphoric acid is not the same as Hydrochloric (sold as muriatric)
Different properties, ... Hydrochloric will flash rust VERY quickly, Phosphorice will oxidize as well, but with Zinc Oxice, a bit of a barrier if you fill the tank quickly.....

 

Of all the methods people have used in the effort to de-rust the fuel tank; I like the 'Electrolysis' method for effect.

Combined with a POR-15 Kit might be a project worth undertaking.

Other methods involve shaking an abrasive inside the tank.
Such as:
Washed stones
Aquarium gravel
Box of Hex Nuts
Small Drywall screws.
(what ever)

Just remember, ... It's a whole lot easier to put stuff INSIDE the Tank than it is to get it back out.

 

With Muriatic acid wash, you can dump it into your swimming pool after being strained from the rust..........thats if you have a swimming pool.....I happen to have a 12,500 gal one......

Anyway, I just muriatic acid washed my tank this weekend ( Xj750J Maxim ) with good results & air dried the tank with a powerful air compressor.....immediate flash rusting.....I will have to deal with that by using an inline filter......maybe I will eventually line it with POR-15 sealant kit......

If I had to do it over again, I would try the phosphoric acid......both acid will etch the entire tank......

 

I just recently used Evapo-Rust to clean the rust out of my tank. I was really impressed with it, too. Did a great job, much better than I expected. Ended up costing me $20 for a gallon of it, and that was enough to rotate through and clear the whole tank in about 48 hours.

I would highly recommend this stuff.

 

I seen this used before and it worked pretty darn good. Purchase at a home depot. after using if there are no leaks you can use two stroke oil to coat inside of tank. if you have leaks use por-15 to line tank.

http://www.krudkutter.com/mustrust.asp