Rusted tank

Hello guys. I need help with my gas tank inside rust. I coated my gas tank with Kleem some time between mid to late 80's. Pulled the tank out and it was in pretty good shape. Stupid me. Put the tank on the frame, cover it with motorcycle cover but cover ripped and the tank was exposed to weather for about three month. I did have rag plugging the gas tank, but yeah, it wasn't enough to keep the water out. Although the cover was ripped, still had enough material to cover the tank somewhat.

Yesterday, while I was mocking up the front fork, noticed inside the tank had slashing noise. Took the tank right away and turn it upside down and there was about half gallon of water in the tank. got the petcock and fuel level sender out and shook the tank some more to get rid of the water. Got almost all of it out, though.

But now, my tank have pretty good rust, along with flaking Kleem coating. It's been more than 20-years from my last experience removing the rust and coating the tank. Little search on the web have so many products out there. Here's the hard part. Because of where I live, most of the stuff I can't get. And from what I can remember, Kleem wasn't all that good.

Can anybody point me to right direction? What to use and such? I took the picture of the tank, but I don't know how to post it here now that I can't use photobucket.

get all the kleen out you that you can.If you can lightly pressure wash the inside do it.If not,garden hose the inside.Get some apple cider vinegar and pour it in.Slosh it around,let it sit and repeat again and again and again.Recycle the acv by straining and re-using.Mix some backing soda with water and rinse.It will neutralize the acid in the acv and help from getting flash rust.Make sure you have some good fuel filters to put on it.

What kind of tank are we talking about and can you get a better one? Removing Kreem, or any type of coating, is a royal pain in the butt. I've done it three times but trust me, you have to be a full on masochist to do it right and it will cost you a LOT of time and a fair bit of $ for chemicals.

Thanks guys. The tank is for my KZ. If push come to shove, I'm willing to send it to professional and have the tank clean and re-coat it. But I wanted to see that will be something I can tackle myself.

I do have pressure washer, but it's electric one, and only produce about 1400 psi. I'll try washing it on my next day-off.

As for my KZ, I'm slowly collecting parts and start my rebuilt. I'd like to post pictures, but as I mentioned before, are having trouble due to photobucket thing.

Anyway, once again, thanks for the input guys.

Avoid Red Kote. I am having to re-paint an H1 tank due to the Red Kote coming off and pooling in the bottom of the tank. One can only assume it's due to the ethanol. I also noticed my GPZ tank no longer looks red on the inside but rusty. That one was freshly painted too.

Acetone dissolves Kreem.

I used lots of acetone to dissolve and remove the Kreen coating from inside the fuel tank on my '76 LTD. Had to be very careful to keep acetone off the exterior paint finish. When the Kreem is all gone and tank has dried out, may restore pristine rust-free tank interior by filling the dry tank with lengths of chain and miscellaneous screws, nuts and bolts (use steel for later removal of small items with a telescoping pencil magnet if necessary) and securely wrapping the tank in padding such as cushions, blankets and thick towels, and then tumbling the tank inside the clothes dryer on no-heat setting for a cycle or so. Remove the tank and its contents, rinse it out with common household rubbing alcohol, allow the alcohol to dry (may blow dry if desired), spray some WD40 or marine oil-base preservative inside the tank to prevent any flash rust until filling the tank with fresh gasoline. This process should restore the tank interior to an almost as-new condition.

This procedure works equally well on other metal gasoline tanks having an interior that needs restoring, such as lawn care machines.

Good Fortune! :side:

Patton wrote: Acetone dissolves Kreem.

I used lots of acetone to dissolve and remove the Kreen coating from inside the fuel tank on my '76 LTD. Had to be very careful to keep acetone off the exterior paint finish. When the Kreem is all gone and tank has dried out, may restore pristine rust-free tank interior by filling the dry tank with lengths of chain and miscellaneous screws, nuts and bolts (use steel for later removal of small items with a telescoping pencil magnet if necessary) and securely wrapping the tank in padding such as cushions, blankets and thick towels, and then tumbling the tank inside the clothes dryer on no-heat setting for a cycle or so. Remove the tank and its contents, rinse it out with common household rubbing alcohol, allow the alcohol to dry (may blow dry if desired), spray some WD40 or marine oil-base preservative inside the tank to prevent any flash rust until filling the tank with fresh gasoline. This process should restore the tank interior to an almost as-new condition.

This procedure works equally well on other metal gasoline tanks having an interior that needs restoring, such as lawn care machines.

Good Fortune! :side:

Thanks Patton. I'll definitely try your method on my next day-off. Never thought about using chain. Tank needs to be repainted anyway, so I'm not too worry about spilling the acetone. Do I need to leave it in the tank for a while? Or does it get dissolve pretty instantly?

Anyway, once I try it, I'll be sure to post the result here for other member to see/hear.

MEK works better than acetone to dissolve Kreem in my experience. MEK is outlawed in some places though. Acetone works okay but it just softens the Kreen, doesn't dissolve it. I had one tank where I used acetone and it turned all soft and gummy but the dang stuff just wouldn't release from the metal. It was frustrating. I use aquarium rocks inside the tank to scrub the metal. Most off the shelf aquarium rocks have a coating on them so the best thing to use is the uncoated type. These little particles get into all the nooks and crannies inside the tank better than using some metal bits inside the tank. The rocks are a pain to try to remove though.

For derusting the tank I like to use Kleenstrip Etch and Prep as sold by Home Depot. It's phosphoric acid and will eat off any rust inside the tank very nicely. Rinse well with water and dump in some alcohol and WD-40 to help dry the tank out so it doesn't flash rust too bad.

Sheet metal screws of all sizes can also be added to the mixture of metal items used inside the tank.

Some have used a large pack of BB's, but non-ferrous BB's such as copper may be harder to remove because they aren't "magnetic."

The mentioned chain is meant as relatively short lengths of smaller cheap chain (not drive chain which isn't as flexible).

I used 3 gallons of acetone to almost fill the tank, which did an acceptable job of dissolving all the old Kreen. Drained all the "dirty" acetone from the petcock through a filter and used it for general clean-up purposes later when "clean" acetone wasn't required, such as wiping off greasy tools, metal parts, etc.

Good Fortune!

Patton wrote: Some have used a large pack of BB's, but non-ferrous BB's such as copper may be harder to remove because they aren't "magnetic."

It's been a while since my BB gun days, but IIRC there were no solid copper BBs: the ones that looked like copper were merely plated, with steel under that. (The current Crosman BBs are advertised as "Premium copper-coated steel BBs".) The thin layer of copper shouldn't make much of a difference to a magnet (unless the magnet is already marginal for the purpose).

I purchased 3 gallons of mek from the hardware store because I had a very nice painted tank with a failing cream liner it .took me several days and at different intervals. Poor the mek in the tank about a half inch from the top leave the Caps off do not set in the Sun try to take rubber sheeting if available around the fuel tank inlet so the fumes do not come out and affect the paint. After soaking for two days I poured the chemical into a bucket hosed out the tank using a long bottle scrub brush the kind of use for cleaning the inside of a thermos ... I I then allowed the tank to dry and filled it with aquarium gravel. I did not want to use nuts bolts and screws for fear of damaging the tank because I wrapped it afterwards in an old couch cushion foam shoved it in the dryer and pack the dryer full of pillows and ran the dryer with no heat for a couple hours. I repeated this tedious process I believe four times. Try and resist fuel tank liners if you can just keep it full at all times with fuel. Also all this was done at a time when the wife would not know I was using her clothes dryer.

OK! I have not tried this yet! BUT! a couple of professional shops and restorers have told me about it!
I vote for it! I have some 1976 Harley FLH tanks to do.
I'm going to buy some.
CASWELL! They have a ton of good stuff for restorations. I have bought all my aluminum buffing supplies for years from them.

www.caswellplating.com/epoxy-gas-tank-sealer.html#