Tank Cleaning

[Maelos]

So. I'm cleaning out my tank with cider vinegar, as I've seen recommended on the interwebs. The cleaning is done, and I've dumped out as much of the cider as I can, I still have some swishing around inside it however. I was going to use a tank sealer on the inside of the tank, and need all of that liquid out. I'm concerned it won't evaporate quickly. Are there any tips/tricks to getting that last little bit out? Or should I take a thin towel on a stick and try to sop it up?

Thanks
-Maelos

[Folsoml]

Use a shop vac. Take a piece of an old water hose and wrap duct tape around one end to make it fit tightly into the end of the shop vac hose. The water hose will fit down into the tank.

[Maelos]

I let it sit and soak for ~1hour, then dumped it to air-dry overnight before I coated it with the sealant. Flash rusted overnight, so before sucking out the old excess, I'm going to re-vinegar overnight. Suck out the excess then use some alcohol-based contact cleaner to absorb and dilute whats left in the nooks and crannies. Hopefully this gets ride of the water in the vinegar fast enough to stop a flash rust before I seal.

I had seen that people recommend fogging the inside of the tank with WD-40 after cleaning. I imagine that these people don't intend to coat the tank. Only fill it with gas and try to keep it from sitting empty for too long as the WD-40 would prevent the sealant from making a good bond to the inside of the gas tank, correct?

Thanks again for all your patience and help, Fosloml!

[Folsoml]

What kind of sealer are you going to use? I use Eastwood's sealer kit, and it have specific steps to follow. You start with a metal wash that removes old fuel varnish, then use diluted muriatic acid to remove rust, an etching chemical then prepares it for the sealant. It recommends to do this one after another.

[Maelos]

A can of excess sealer that a buddy has from an earlier tank job. I can't recall the brand at the moment. The directions on the back of the can were not as detail as the Eastwood's, and it isn't too expensive. So I may forgo the sealer for now and pick up the Eastwoods kit for an over-winter project.

Thanks for the heads up

[Pbiggs]

what do you think about red kote folsom?

[Folsoml]

what do you think about red kote folsom?

I don't have any experience with this kind. I've only used Northern (which I'll not use again) and Eastwood.

[Maelos]

Soaked the tank in cider vinegar, for the second time, for 24-hours. Dumped it, rinsed with water, sucked out the excess with a shop van, WD-40'd the living daylights out of it, sucked out the excess water that was displaced by the WD-40, WD-40'd again. So far so good. Now I have a leaky petcock to contend with, in another thread.

Thanks again for all the help, photos to follow, click the thumbnails for larger photos.


Fuel Tank pre-vinegar treatments. And pre-flash rust


Tank after the first vinegar treatment, and after flash rusting overnight.


Tank after soaking in vinegar the second time, for 24 hours.


Tank after the second treatment, all cleaned and pretty.

[entropy]

Don't forget to clean out the coating of mineral spirits that WD-40 leaves behind before you try to seal it.

[Maelos]

I decided not to clean it for now, I'll just keep it topped off with fuel. Come winter when I can't ride, I'll get an actual sealer kit, instead of a used can from a buddy.