86 VFR fuel tank coating?

Has anyone had experience with coating an 86 VFR fuel tank with the screened pickups permanently installed in the tank.

I think the main pick up would be fine but the reserve pickup screen is very close to the bottom of the tank. I'm worried about the sealer sealing the screen up.

I've been trying to think of how I can prevent this or how to cover the screen temporarily but access is pretty minimal.

Thanks,

 

Any luck on this. This was a concern years ago.... and still is. The PO of my bike stored it empty and I was looking for ways to recondition it.. I wasn't able to come up with a solution. I've just starting looking at my project again and this is still something i need to address.

 

I wouldn't coat with the plumbing and screens. I would do electrolysis rust removal. It is simple and magic, and that tank doesn't look "horrible". Ive done it to a few tanks and it is amazing and doesn't hurt the outside finish. Or try some the rust dissolver products, they work pretty damn good too.

 

Years ago I found a lot of information about this process.
I found a post of a guy that made a tank to fit his entire trailer frame into to remove the rust. Very interesting.. I've got nothing to lose. I'll try it and post results before and after..

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I've heard vinegar works well. I did electrolysis once. Took forever and never got it all. I finally used evaporust.

 

Use one of the modern chelating rust removers like Evaporust or whatever they have in your country. These use the came chemical process as black treacle (molassess, look at YouTube for loads of info on this) and is a very gentle but hugely effective way of de-rusting. The process just removes the rust, not the underlying steel. I did it on a VF500 tank and it was really impressive. Vinegar (acetic acid) or any other commonly available acid (including citric, formic, lactic, sulphuric, hydrochloric) will remove good steel as well as the rust. The acid might work faster but for a tank IMO, it's too aggressive.

 

You gotta clean the anode and replace the solution, but it will get it all with some patience.

The new rust dissolvers are pretty impressive tho, I agree.

I stay away from acids as much as possible.

 

The evapo-rust is readily available near me. I might try this as a first step. I don't have a work space where I live so I'm limited with space, tools and storage.
Next house will definitely need to have a garage.

 

I've used evapo-rust on several tanks now. It contains a chelate that binds to iron oxide, but not iron. So as that agent gets used up, the solution gets weaker. This means you can continue to reuse it for a while--it'll just take longer. You don't need a full 4-5 gallons either. Just rotate the tank around into different spots over the course of few days (conservative).

If you go this route, I highly recommend not flushing it with water afterwards. I immediately flash rusted a CL350 tank I did and had to redo it. Even with a hair dryer trying to dry it out as quick as possible. I used acetone and it worked fine the next time. You could probably use old gasoline too.

 

My thought was to use gas and or alcohol.... The going rate these days 91 octane is likely cheaper than rubbing alcohol..

 

I was going to try a couple of different methods as I've got several tanks to prep.
Not sure that vinegar is aggressive enough to remove much good metal but it has the issue of flash rusting. Thinking I would start with it to help removed varnish and then uses evaporust or equivalent.

Still thinking of coating. V4dreams dot com maintenance section talks of success coating VFR tanks.

I'm waiting for warmer weather to do this. I have a long spring list before the bike then first on the list is a top end clean up and carb rebuild.

 

Well, Joe knows his shit and has the skill and experience to pull it off. It's gotta be BAD and need a paint job before I'm coating tho.

 

I used Metal Rescue a couple of years ago and it worked great.....

 

Works VERY VERY well in my experience