A coupla Kreem Questions

[tejasmud]

Thanks for the details on the Kreme removal. Doesn't sound like much fun. The radiator shop sounds like an idea. Any opinions why my petcock screen isn't showing signs of a lot of muck?

If the Kreem is flaking off in pieces too big to pass through the screen filter on the petcock they will just float around in the tank. Kreem should not disolve in gasoline and turn to muck/sludge.

Stripper will turn the Kreem to muck/sludge, but once the pieces dry they turn hard and brittle.

Rust is normally what you will see pass through the screen since the particles are much smaller. They will be redish/brown naturally. The Kreem is more of a tan/beige color, and if the particals are small enough they will pass through the screen as well. This is probably what you are seeing in the inline filter.

I have no clue as to what the inside of your tank looks like, but in opinion if the tank doesn't have large patches of Kreem flaking off and it is not grossly rusting you might be able to just do a scrub/wash the tank out with some screws and Evapo-Rust. Basscliff has a tutorial on his Bikecliff website with pictures called "Tank Cleaning with evapo-rust," bottom left on the page, if you have not seen it yet.

http://members.dslextreme.com/users/bikecliff/

This will clean it up a bit and should knock down the sediment for a while. As long as you keep and cycle gas through the tank the rust should be minimal. In theory not allowing the gas to break down, and the lack of oxygen should keep any rusting at bay. Although all the Kreem coating will not come out with the Evapo-rust treatment, over time the failing Kreem coating will most likely continue to slowly fail as the gasoline migrates under the coating.

If you decide to try to strip the coating with some sort of stripper, I would steer clear of using the plugs in the tutorial. The red plastic peices will melt, I can say this from experience.

I have not tried the Evaporust with the plugs, seems like they were not affected in the tutorial.

E

[1948man]

Thanks for the info. I'm going to go ahead and clean my carbs and see if I can live with my tank for a while. If not, I guess I'll get a little more experience cleaning them again and redoing my tank. The in-line filter seems to be catching stuff. My bike pulls fine but stumbles a little from 3K to 3500. From what I read, my problems may due to having PODS (unifilter) without a DJ Kit. The bike pulls good at higher rpms so it seems the in-line filter isn't restricting flow.

[Nessism]

Removing a Kreem liner/coating inside a tank is way more involved than just pouring in the stripper, sloshing it around, and pouring it out from my experience.

It Sucks Big Time! Even when you are going to strip the outside to do a repaint anyways it still sucks.

I AGREE!!!! Stripping the tank is NO FUN. Heavy duty paint stripper works best in my experience, but it's nasty stuff. One caution: make sure you allow the tank to out gas while the sauce is cooking since the chemical reaction causes outgasing and your tank will pooch out if it's sealed too tight (don't ask me how I learned this).

[Justonv]

I too had an experience with stripping out a Kreem liner put in by the PO. It was coming out of the tank in long gooey strings and gunking up my carbs and petcock. Used acetone and a handful of nuts and washers. Shook it and shook it and shook it. Took several days doing it. Then of course had to patch the pinholes in the corner by the petcock. I relined it with a product called Red Kote, it seems to be pretty good, no problems with it, other than the red dye they use for you to see your coverage coming out in my fuel for a while, but it didn't do anything but turn my inline filter element red. No biggie.