To coat, or not to coat, that is the question!

Now being relativly new to this, and not having ever done a tank. I must ask the question.
Now I would imagine there could be some blood shed among the masses on this, what I would think could be a sesetive subject to some.
.......................But here we go......................

My 72 Roadster tank is in great shape, considering it was not a barn find,....... but a left out behing the barn for 28 years find...........
believe it or not, the tank is in great shape. how ever there is a small amount of surface rust inside the tank, not a whole lot.

I was thinking of going the vinigar, nuts and bolts route.............. just to clean her up a little, then put her into service..........

But I must ask the masses................. " To coat, or not to coat"!...................................

And hey....... take it easy on each other........ were all brothers................... 8)

Yeah,

I would first do the nuts and bolts clean and flush a couple times thing, make sure i have nice new petcocks with filters in place and go ride it.

Go through a half tank of gas, take off tank and hold it upside down and see shake it and see what comes out.

If you got almost all the old stuff out great, otherwise maybe time to coat it.

Not much need to coat a merely lightly rusted tank, as the light rust stays adhered and stable. W/o boozed gas just phos acid or molasses or acetic acid soaks with nuts/bolts needed to dislodge rust. But alcohol gas is an oxidizer and if stored long can separate into bottom water layer. As one can't predict life or how long a tank may sit up with gas, its a good idea to coat as preventive like I did my Trixie's steel roadster tank 5 yr ago and plenty of boozed gas run thru on out of state trips. Crushed her tank sides in twice now, by deer strike and THE Gravel taking me down, only had to bondo and paint as the thick Caswells stayed intact though lost most a quart of gas volume from the bashing in and the most a pint worth of Caswell's.

Go to Harbor Freight and buy a gallon on EvapoRust, leave it in the tank a few days then drain and reuse it. Just did this to a tank and looked like new when done especially if not very bad shape. Won't hurt paint or rubber either.

Has anyone else tried this Evaporust product.
Thank You
And I shall look it up to see if it is available in my area.

I've used Evaporust on two tanks, and it works as advertised. Good stuff. Think I saw it at a car parts store for less than I bought it for at Harbor Freight, which was a little surprising. It wont harm your paint, and is non-toxic.

dougmatson said:

Go to Harbor Freight and buy a gallon on EvapoRust, leave it in the tank a few days then drain and reuse it. Just did this to a tank and looked like new when done especially if not very bad shape. Won't hurt paint or rubber either.

Click to expand...

Available at Canadian Tire.........

This stuff may just be my new best friend.

I've used it, it leaves heavy rust as a black deposit. I'm not sure I'd leave that in a tank, but see what you get. It will probably be easier to clean out at any rate.

Dave
69S