Rustol (Worth the money)

[L-Aholic]

I have been searching for a while and have seen a lot of posts on gas tank clean up. I have seen this product mentioned with good results and wanted to know if you have used it and if so how you liked it. I have also seen a lot of posts not too kind to the Kreem and Por 15 type products. The tank I am cleaning is not real bad on the inside but I would like to clean it up as much as possible without using the coating products after clean up. Would you recommend cleaning it this way or should I use one of the coating products after cleaning the tank with the Rustol to seal it? Thanks

[Nessism]

That Rustol is listed at $47/quart, crazy expensive in my opinion.

I think you can do a very good job using a phosphate wash and aquarium rocks. The Por-15 Metal Ready is phosphate and will eat the rust off the inside of the tank pretty well. Rotate the tank every few hours if possible until the rust is gone. On my tank I did that and had to leave the tank for a couple of days to get all the rust. After rinsing there was a chalky residue so some alcohol was dumped in along with the rocks; swish everything around really well and you should be good to go.

[catbed]

i used kbs-coatings on mine but that is a coating, so you might not be interested. worked well though

[bwringer]

I've seen Kreem fail miserably twice, despite following the directions to the absolute letter. It's junk, IMHO. YMMV.

Several here have been very satisfied with POR-15's cleaning and coating kit.

As far as removing rust, there's also a product called Evapo-Rust that works extremely well, is harmless to hands and paint, it's environmentally friendly, and you don't have to neutralize it after use. Evapo-Rust is available in most auto parts stores and a few home stores in quarts or gallon jugs.

I've used Evapo-Rust with excellent results on other rusty stuff, but not a gas tank yet. However, if I had a rusty gas tank to deal with, it would be my first choice.

Electrolysis might be worth trying, as well, but it requires a lot of room and involves some somewhat dangerous equipment. If you have the proper power supply, the space, and an experimental nature, it would be interesting to try.

[cleonard]

I'm may give the electrolytic method a go depending on how bad the tank is on my current project(GS750). I'll make a report about it.

[fgh]

Electrostatic Rust Removal

I've used this process on the Aspy and it worked very well. You'll need some sodium carbonate (not sodium bicarbonate) and a battery charger. You disslove the Sodium carbonate in water (find an appropriate ratio on line), pour it in the tank, connect the negative (I think, check online) to the tank and the positive to an electrode that is in the solution. This electrode can't touch the tank. People warned that this is a line of sight method which I guess means that you must be able to draw a straight line from the electrode to all surfaces on the tank. Given the odd shape of a GS tank I would take two steel rods that can be inserted into the filler cap and angled to extend into each side of the tank. Put a piece of rubber hose over the ends of the rods and clamp them to the filler neck. Hook up the charger and give it at least fours, I'd give it eight.

The only real shortfall or difficult issue would be getting the very top of the tank. Each gas tank I've seen has a fill tube that extends below the top of the tank. If you could seal the fill cap with the electrodes going through it then you could invert the tank but that would be a hassle to seal. If you can get a U-shaped line through the throat and up into the air pocket you could suck the air out. That's what I did. LOL!!

[L-Aholic]

Thanks for the responses. I think I will try the Evapo-Rust since it cannot be as expensive as the Rustol and the tank is not in bad shape. I will post to let everyone know how it does. I really do not want to coat the inside of the tank if I can help it. My concern with the coatings is if you do not get the tank 100% clean and dry you are trapping rust between the metal and the coating which would not be good.