what have you guys done to clean up a rusted tank?

sm7482

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Jan 29, 2008
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How have you guys delt with a rusty tank? I have a 74 kawi g5 i will be restoring soon and the tank is in great shape not a single dent but it have some lighter than wanted rust in the tank. How could i remove this? I was thinking of electrolysis, as a possibility. I don't really want to use some sort of a tank coater either. Ive also herd of buting sand in it and shaking it around. what have you guys done?

<a href="http://s116.photobucket.com/albums/o3/rock_krawler/?action=view&current=CIMG5949.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i116.photobucket.com/albums/o3/rock_krawler/CIMG5949.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a>
 

sm7482

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Jan 29, 2008
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cool that sounds like an ideal way to go. Im still shaky on coating it thogh, ive heard some coatings peal off.
 

Shaw520

Damn Yankees
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I've used a combo of BB's and airpellets,.. when used according to the directions the coatings work well,.. you'll still want to run an inline filter for good measure.
 
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sm7482

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Jan 29, 2008
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okay ill go with that coating system and defenantly an inline fileter. Thanks for reminding me, ill get that orderd today.
 

outlawgrafyx

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Feb 9, 2008
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Vintagesplash said:
POR-15

Degreases, removes the rust, etches the metal, and coats, all in 4 easy steps.

You can even buy it on E-Bay.


i just did that to my tank last night...works really good, fair on pricing but that just depends. theres a difference between a sealer and a liner(kreem). a sealer is like etching primer that actually "bites" into the metal and encapsulates all flash/surface rust. a liner just lines the tank. and isnt as durable as sealer. as long as the inside of your tank is completely BONE DRY then the sealer works awesome... make sure there is no excess sealer that can form puddles
 

Rich Rohrich

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The electrolysis method has been used for years by guys restoring old Brit bikes. It works incredibly well and it's nice and safe.

Click the link below for an excellent explanation of the process:

http://www.altelco.net/~jacil/clay/motorcycle/KElecSetup.html

electrolysis_setup.jpg
 
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2strokerfun

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May 19, 2006
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Helped my oldest boy do an electrolysis science fair experiment to remove rust from steel pieces a few years back. I got interested in this when a friend was trying to figure out how to remove rust from inside an old Harley tank he bought. Used battery charger and plastic tub with 4" steel bar stock left out in the rain for a couple of months. The variable was the types of liquid solutions we used (I guess the dependent variable was the time it took to remove the rust). One of the solutions was washing soda/water mix (different than baking soda--although we tried that too). The liquid that worked the fastest was Pepsi. My thinking was the acidity of the Pepsi was doing something independent of the charge--someone smarter than I may know. But I think I would stick with the soda/water solution if I were trying to do this to something I actually cared about. The metal pieces de-rusted in the soda solution appeared to be in the best shape when finished. Some other solutions worked OK, but not quite as well. Amazing how well this can work. Sacrificial anodes suffered greatly. Unfortunately, so did the positive clamp on the battery charger, but it kept falling down into the solution whenever the cat would try and bat it around. The cat lived through this experiment.
 

Rich Rohrich

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2strokerfun said:
The cat lived through this experiment.

That's unfortunate. :p
 

2strokerfun

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May 19, 2006
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Unfortunately for Mr. Cat, he kept getting into stuff he shouldn't have. I pulled a very stiff Mr. Cat from under our bed a couple of months ago and buried him. My wife then ordered a friggin tombstone without telling me, of course. When I found out what she paid, I finally cried.
 
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