Tuesday, March 18, 2008

Tank sealed

Brief posting. I finished sealing the tank on Sunday (3/16) with the stuff from Eastwood. Easy to use, easy to follow instructions. I went off-script only with the rust-killer. The Eastwood and ratwell.com instructions both indicate to use muriatic acid to eat the rust. When I was at Home Depot, I found a "zap" product that claimed to eat the rust, and do so with a no-toxic formula. Now, I've got kids running around all the time, so any opportunity to use something that's less harmful, I'm taking it.

According to the instructions on the bottle of Zap, it works considerably slower than muriatic acid. When I got it home on Saturday, I took a long look at the insides of the fuel tank, and my rust was very minimal. I used the Zap stuff, and it ate the rust that I had in there in about 30 minutes.

I used the Metal Etch according to the instructions, but I didn't clean up the excess with the Acetone. Instead, I let the tank drain overnight and it was dry and had that hazy light gray color anyway. I'll be returning the Acetone later. The liner poured in easily, and coated very well. It was pretty easy, just move the liquid around the tank so it covers as well as you can get it. Drain it well when you're done. I stood the tank like I did the night before - with the fill spout at the very bottom, so it couldn't pool as it dried.

If I had to do it over again, I'd set up a saw horse or something to set the tank on. Leaning over a tank all afternoon got my back hurting. One of these days I gotta remember that I'm not 20 anymore. I didn't get to paint the outside. The weather turned rainy, so its sitting under a tarp waiting for the next sun break.

I should be cleaning, vibration & sound insulating, etc the tank bay this weekend. Hopefully, I'll have some before-after pictures. I expect to start posting pancake (type4) engine parts for sale soon. If you have needs, email me.

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