Tank refurbishment or replacement?

For all your mechanical queries, or for sharing your mechanical know-how. Also used for arguing about which oil to use...
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Richard
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Re: Tank refurbishment or replacement?

Post by Richard »

And yes I'm going thru the same misery myself as I became stranded on the side of the highway with a blocked petcock...

During inspection I found many small rust areas beneath the paint and sure enough when I used a nail I could easily make a pinhole. My tank was full of them so after I found all of them I had it fixed with silver-solder (much harder then regular solder). Next step will be dérusting etc so thanks all for the useful info ;)
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Richard
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Re: Tank refurbishment or replacement?

Post by Richard »

I've been doing some investigation on The Net and I found horror stories for basically all sealing products out there. It seems the main issue is the amount of ethanol in the modern fuel we all use, it simply dissolves the layer of sealing coat and often form flakes or smaller floating particles which in turn will cause fuel blockage issues again, so back to the point where my issues all started at the first place! Most products seem to be fine for some 4 or 5 years though but I don't want to redo all my efforts every 5 year, also because I'm not getting younger...

So I redid my research and concentrated on finding a sealing product capable of withstanding the ethanol. The only one I can find is a product from Caswell Europe called "ETHANOL PROOF FUEL TANK SEALER GTS1750", for around 70 Euro's it's not a cheap product though. I know Caswell has been around for years and maybe they improved their product to better withstand the ethanol but I can't find any proof on The Net, no user articles stating good results after 5 years I mean. So maybe someone on this forum has used this product over 5 years ago (if it existed back then) and can post some feedback?

More info from Caswell Europe
Caswell Tank Sealer
Caswell Tank Sealer
Last edited by Richard on 01 Apr 2018, 15:36, edited 1 time in total.
Rob@TZP
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Re: Tank refurbishment or replacement?

Post by Rob@TZP »

Cheers - I'll see if they sell it in Australia. My mate's dead keen on Red Kote and he's done a bit of looking into it. We generally don't use the ethanol petrol here but that's not to say there isn't any ethanol in what we do use. I'll check more before trying.
David Richard
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Re: Tank refurbishment or replacement?

Post by David Richard »

a very emotive subject looking after your tank I made the mistake 20 years ago on a 400 4 with petseal,now we all know its crap and should not be sold ,I got it all out and have used por 15 in all my bikes even a brand new 750 c3 tank and never had any problems .I have a 750 tank which is a spare I brought last year a 91 model for 100 pounds a whole bike which I striped .I intend to use electrolysis which I hope will be able to do the job ,but will the tank flash rust before I prepair it for por 15,thanks david
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Stu
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Re: Tank refurbishment or replacement?

Post by Stu »

Clean steel will flash rust in air... use any rust product containing phosphoric acid (or actual phosphoric acid if you can get it) to remove and protect it.
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Richard
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Re: Tank refurbishment or replacement?

Post by Richard »

Thanks for the feedback guys, I was hoping someone using the Caswell product would chime in...
David Richard
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Re: Tank refurbishment or replacement?

Post by David Richard »

thanks for the info ,I read your post again ,so just bare with me ,if I use electrolysis to start with then clean that out with water ,then use phosphoric acid that should hold back the flash rust until it dries then por 15 thanks david
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Stu
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Re: Tank refurbishment or replacement?

Post by Stu »

That should work fine. Note that it's really difficult to see into the bottom of our tanks, so difficult to know when it's clean of all rust.

For those who have to deal with ethanol fuels, note that POR15 claims to be "ethanol resistant" and Caswell (and Sureseal) claim to be "ethanol proof".

You pays your money and takes your choice... Mine would be Caswell!
David Richard
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Re: Tank refurbishment or replacement?

Post by David Richard »

thanks very kind ill look into it ,david
andye
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Re: Tank refurbishment or replacement?

Post by andye »

Frost do a kit for Por 15 with a cleaner & etcher
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