SRX400E electrolysis of fuel tanks

[guest24]

For those who don't use FaceBook, here are the pictures I posted about the electrolysis work I've done on my fuel tank. This work was based on the article in Practical Sportsbikes

Pictures are here:
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.678171495609044.1073741827.100002485997446&type=1&l=63ad1ed0d5

I have been using the Kreem product to clean and seal the tank. Three bottles of stuff. Phosphoric acid, acetone and the goopy sealant. All vey smelly and as it is acetone, also very explosive.

An extra tool needed for this job is a siphon pump to remove any water/solutions from the tank. This is imperative and you must not rely on the small amount of supplied acetone to do the job.

I also used a PV cell to keep the battery topped up while the electrolysis ran for 4 days.

The finished product looks OK. I haven't tested it with petrol yet. I would like to assume it works as the Kreem is still available in the shops.

[guest24]

Fuel tank no. 1 is OK and currently fitted whilst the restoration work continues.

I've got tank no. 2 stewing a soda crystal solution at the moment. The old pet seal is breaking up inside and coming off. Just received my acetone bottle from fleabay so will use that clean the tank sometime soon.

[timbo]

I have two xbr tanks I'm cleaning out at the moment. One is real rough inside, so I soaked it in soda crystal solution for  the max recommended of five days, agitating every so often. I then rinsed tank. Not impressed, it didn't really work. Though there are big flakes of tank sealent in the tank.
Should it have dissolved these?
Does ambient temp play a part?
So im repeating the process, but with the tank in the house rather than a freezing shed
Other tank has had some serious welding on the underside in a previous life, butt appears to have some light rust inside. So I started with stage 2, the recommended Spirits of Salt. Nobody I asked had heard of this stuff. It turns out to be the ancient name for hydrochloric acid at 30%. Instead of diluting it as recommended, I just used brick clean neat, which is 11%.  Well impressed, totally removed any rust. 
After a good rinse, then went to stage 3, phosphoric acid. This is the main product in a lot of rust converters, and basically etches the metal making any rust residue inert. I had managed to buy phosphoric acid at the recommended strength of 80%. It did a great job, tank is like new inside 
Finally stage 4, rinse thoroughly, then dry inside of tank immediately and carefully with a heat gun.
Inspect inside with a small torch on a piece of string or wire.
I don't plan to seal the tanks as I think its too much hassle, plus I drain them if the bike is off the road.
MEGA IMPORTANT, DO THE PROCESS OUTSIDE WITH HOSEPIPE AS ACID IS NASTY 

[Propellor]

Isn't chemistry marvellous. Wish I'd studied harder as a kid!

[timbo]

OK, so continuing from previous post, re stubborn xbr tank. I filled tank again with soda crystal solution, but this time put it in the house for four days. Something was definitely happening as a white residue was appearing out of the filler cap.
So took outside and rinsed with hose. Degraded tank lining had come away from most of inside of tank. Shook out what I could, but this still left large flakes inside. So I threw a load of nuts in and shook about. This helped a bit. Then I got a big length of rusty chain and fed it into the tank and shook vigorously. This definitely helped brake up the flakes of tank liner. I did this repeatededly, rinsing each time..
Moved onto the two acid stages which cleaned up any rust, but freed up more flakes.
Was starting to lose my rag with the whole thing, so dried out with a heat gun. (I'll not tell you how long this all took, but I was outside in the snow!)
Tank completely dry, but I could still here/see large flakes inside.
So I then huffed like Fk!
Alison then got a chopstick, (yes a chopstick!), and put sticky tape on the end. She put it in tank and lifted out the remaining flakes   
I then stuck end of hoover in and now tank is completely clean, but what a palaver 

[steveD]

Yeah but your exploits keep us entertained!

[timbo]

Glad to be of service 

[timbo]

OK, did a third xbr tank yesterday. Its a rough old bike, and had been painted matt black, in other words its a rat xbr.
However the matt black paint has protrected the tank very well. Had a good look inside with a torch on a bit of string.
So went straight to the hydrochloric acid stage, then the phosphoric acid stage. Then final rinse and dry immediately with heat gun. Tank now like new inside.
So my conclusion so far is that if a tank has been previously sealed with a sealant which has started to degrade or break up, I'm not actually sure if its worth the effort 

[guest1964]

 
Have thought about zinc plating the inside of the tank.
guess that possible