tank cleaning..now I have more rust than I began with..help!

[Anonymous]

So what I thought would be an easy enough task turned into a disaster! I went to clean my tank. Soaked in vinegar for 2 days, dumped it out, put in the MEK as everyone suggested, but apparently not fast enough because I had instant rust! Now its even worse than it was before i started.
So I bowed my head, went to the shop and bought the KREEM tank cleaning kit. I looked at the ingredients and its the same stuff! The cleaning stuff is phosphoric acid (rather than vinegar) which you dilute about a pint into 2.5 gallons. It says for heavy rust, let it sit overnight, with rotations. Next, you drain the treatment, rinse with water, then treat with the second bottle, which is MEK. It specifically says to do it quickly to prevent flash rusting. Then you do the coating.
So here's my dilema. I don't want to repeat the process with some fancy kit, when its really the same stuff with the exception of the coating. Here's what I was thinking. First, use a chain with some nuts attached (so I can fish them out), toss those in with some WD40 (or would you use soappy water?) and shake it periodically for a couple days (only with the WD40) to get loose any of the new rust. Then do the phosphoric acid (say 1:4 dilution of the stuff you get at the hardware store) overnight, get up the next morning, drain, rinse with water until it looks like it is rinsing clean (I'm ad libbing here based on what the KREAM directions call for), then immediately get it into MEK. Roll that around for about 5 minutes, drain, and let it dry.
Assuming there is no rust in it at this point, can I skip the coating step? If I can avoid using the kit I would like to (I've installed an in line fuel filter).
Does anyone think this will work? Is this any different than the kit? Will the kit just give me the same problems? Also, has anyone tried using a hairblower after the MEK rinse to spead things up? Is MEK the only thing to use? Can I use straight ethanol? Will that harm the inside of the tank?
Thanks for your help everyone!
Katie

[Sandy]

There is some good info here.

https://www.thegsresources.com/_forum/viewtopic.php?t=23966&highlight=por

Hope this helps.

[first timer]

so did the vinigar work? what kind and how much did you use?


did the flash rust occur right after you drained and rinsed the tank with water or after you did the second rinse with the MEK. you could try the vinigar again remove the flash rust, mek it then pour in the liner or dump tons of wd40 in the tank after the mek wash. the wd should stick to the metal and repel any water until you decide what you are going to do next. if you then decide to kreem it or take it to a radiator shop to seal it they will just need to mek it again to get rid of the wd-40 so the sealent will stick.

BTW, the kreem tank system is real messy, the liner will get every where and you need to keep rotateing the tank in new and creative angles like every 1/2 hour for like 2-3 days to make sure you get every thing coated well and it is dry. it may not be a bad idea to cover you tank in a couple layers of painters tape or some sort of tape safe for clear coats, that way you will keep the scratchs to the tank down to a minimum.

hope this helps, i am looking to clean the inside of my tank then have a shop seal it for me.

oh yeah try to keep the tank inside a heat/moister controled space ( your house) after you acid washed the tank to keep flash rust down to a minimum. i have striped and sanded outside of my tank down to bare metal and denatuared alcholed all the grim off and have the tank siting in my closet in my house and there is not a speck of flash rust on the outside of the tank and it has been 2 weeks.
garages and outdoor buildings typically have a higher humidity then a house running a furnace or ac unit.

-ryan

[snowbeard]

one thing for sure you want to remove your petcock, and perhaps any other items before doing the KREEM,

edit: and there are many other things besides kreem, POR 15 comes highly recommended around here, and I just saw another one that was supposed to be even better, as it penetrates the existing rust and hardens around it, sealing it away from the air to prevent further rusting under the coat. I'll see if I can find that stuff again...

edit #2: that stuff is rust bullet click here

like I said before, I don't know if the MEK does anything special to the metal, I used phosphoric acid diluted (don't know how much ) and pure acetone to dry it. I never got around to actually coating it, and I do get some flash rusting when the tank gets low, but not much really. I also still run an inline filter.

I don't know if I'd let it sit in soapy water with WD-40, it may cause it to rust more! 8O using multiple batches of phos acid did a good job for me. the nuts and chain idea is good too.

I then used some pH up from the hot tub chemicals on the rock garden I dumped my acid in, tho I don't really know if it made any difference, there;s still grass galore in my rocks! :roll:[/url]

[jtcrespo]

Do not skip the coating step!

You need to use some kind of coating in order to prevent rust from coming back, your tank will always have a certain amount of moisture in it due to humidity in the outside air.

I wouldn't recommend using a hair dryer either around these chemicals. I sat my tank in front of a fan and turned it over periodically so the air could blow into different sides through the gas cap hole.

[SqDancerLynn1]

RustBullit sounds alot like Por15

[snowbeard]

it does. the animation makes it look great :roll: but that's supplied by them...

an old vacuum cleaner that you can plug the hose in backwards works really well, the hair dryer has heating elements so close the the air out it may cause an explosion??? 8O

duct tape may do alright for closing the holes from the petcock, etc, but I used some chemical spill tape that has great resistance to solvents, tho it doesn't hold up to gasoline at all!....

[Anonymous]

Hi all,
So the acid i tried originally was a vinegar diluted 3parts vinegar to 1 part water. I had it completely full and it sat in the garage for 2 days. I didn't have any leaks. The flash rust happened as soon as I dumped the vinegar out and tried to get the mek in. I guess I couldn't get it in fast enough?
Then I blasted it with my hose, figuring that at that point I already had rust, and ran it with MEK again for about 15 minutes to dry it. It's been pretty rainy here, and the tank has been sealed completely, but sitting in my outdoor garage since i worked on it on monday.
So I'm still confused. If I try the phos acid, should I fill it all the way up? Or put it in, then rotate for a couple hours? Once I dump it out, how do I prevent the rust from happening again? I can't really dump out the phospohric acid or work with MEK in the house....

[jtcrespo]

Kream also sells a bottle of just the coating without the rest of the chemicals.

[Anonymous]

Use Red Kote as your sealer...it is FAA approved for sealing the tanks for aircraft. If is good enough for FAA, its good enough for your GS!! Don't use KREEM!!! I have had two friends use it on two different bikes (a KZ1000 and a custom Big Bear Chopper). Both cases the KREEM ended up peeling away from the tank, resulting in KREEM in the gas lines, fuel filter, and carb = not good.

[Anonymous]

more thoughts

so does the phosphoric acid not cause the flash rusting? The KREEM stuff still warns against flash rusting...but I'm not sure how to prevent it. With the vinegar it happened almost instantly!
What would happen if I did the chain/nuts thing with some WD40..wash with gas, chains/nuts, wash with gas (filter gas through filter paper in between to avoid spending my paycheck on gas). Will this get rid of the rust. I definitely have visable rust, but the kreem stuff sounds more hassel than its worth, especially since I can't find gasket or cork to fill in my petcock hole/fuel hole. I'm putting in an in line, clear fuel filter. Will I do any damage if I do this for a while, checking the filter and changing it whenever I need to (they're really cheap)...
any thoughts on this idea?

[Anonymous]

also, does anyone know what I should use to fill in the fuel hole and the petcock hole when I do the sealant? Can I use chemical spill tape? If so, where do I get that? Even easier would be parafilm (a wax like paper you can pull super tight), but would that react with the acid/mek washes? Oh jeez...I'm getting scared I'm going to make things even worse every time I step near the bike!

[Dark Jedi]

Spnds like you have a high humidity environment. Try a dryer place, if possible.

[Sandy]

I used short 6mm allen screws to fill the fuel tap screw holes and then duct taped over the opening. This allows you to easily remove the tape to drain excess sealant out without the worry of also getting the screw holes plugged. I also duct taped over the fuel filler hole and that seemed to work good. If you have a fuel gauge that must also be removed. On my GS1000 I found that a #9.5 rubber stopper fitted the hole perfectly and allowed you to easily remove it to inspect inside of the tank. These are available at most wine supply stores. As someone else mentioned make sure you protect the outside of the tank somehow as you are going to be handling it a lot as well as setting it down at different angles and you don't want to mark up the paint..

[snowbeard]

yes, you'll still get some flash rust with the phos. I would say fill it completely, with nuts and bolts, leave it for a day or so shaking for the bolts. then when you dump it, just flush the hose into it overflowing it till it's sure to have diluted out all the acid. then as you dump that last bit of water, hit it with the organic of your choice.

I don't know if you'll be able to avoid any and all rust, but you should probably be able to run it with the filter for a little while, just check it. they are cheap, but if too much crap gets thru them, the carbs and the rest of the engine aren't...

good luck!