Fuel Tank internal coatings

Has anyone here got or had experience with Fuel internal tank coatings to stop rust and fill pinholes? Information on Red-kote and Gold Standard would be good and if possible any other options. I have 4 VF750 F bikes 2 in need fuel tanks, not so keen to strip any of them down for parts. trying to see if I can get tank made but the fuel valve arrangement seems to very difficult to get it right. I also have a few other bikes in need of a coating inside the tanks, so would prefer to keep all the VF750's running and the rest of my bikes. I am pretty sure the fuel here is not so good. Reasons for poor fuel: If I owned a processing plant for fuel what would I do with all the tars etc left over from the distillation and refining process? My guess is that unscrupulous operators of such would add the tars to gasoline, easy to dissolve, and send it to a 3rd world country. This gets rid of the waste and as is a 3rd world country, who will listen. So the gas smells real bad, forms a lacquer type residue to block jets and fuel orifices.

Any suggestions and or information would greatly help keep more VF's on the road.

As an aside, today I have stripped down 4 CDI units and about to rebuild them, not so hard to do for the 83 VF750F. Most of the time I think people swap out these CDI units and replace even though they are okay. I think I read where Pops had written, much appreciate the style of Pops if still around, on the operation of the Kill switch. Years ago a kill switch shorted out the ignition in the kill/stop position and thus shut an engine down, a normally open switch NO. The modern concept is the switch is in run so power passes through the switch to the CDI units etc, this being a normally closed or NC switch. By cleaning the contacts with CO spray or electrical contact spray resistance in the switch can be reduced thus increasing power to the ignition systems.

Happy riding, stay upright and enjoy the sun, rain, hot and cold.

 

Hi R1der,

can't help you with the tank coatings, but I can say that the way that fuel is produced, you tend to use pretty much everything. The tarry bits you describe are readily usable for sealing roads and can also be catalytically cracked to make lighter fractions that get used for other products. What you describe is more probably a result of the fuel being old, not fresh. Old fuel tends to lose some of the lighter fractions and that process can lead to some material dropping out of solution to produce some gummy deposits in fuel tanks and lines, old fuel also tends to go with a drop in power production and poor starting behaviour.

 

Hi R1der and welcome to the MadHouse:welcome:

Anyone with 15 motorbikes and 4 VFRs will fit in well here. I suspect you are our first forum member from Laos!

:focus:

I think fatbastard is right re old fuel. Even the heavy end of the barrel has a market, so refinery managers are unlikey to go tipping crud back into their petrol fraction.

Even in the first world motorbikes suffer from fuel decay! That is why if people intend to lay up their motorbike for a long period motorbike manufacturers recommend either draining the fuel system completely or at least adding fuel stabiliser and then brimming the tank to minimise the risk of water vapour in the atmosphere settling out inside the tank and starting rust. I guess in parts of Laos the climate is fairly humid - which may greatly increase the risk of rust developing inside your fuel tank.

A search on here will find plenty of threads from people restoring long unused VFRs - often enquiring how to clear carburettors of bad fuel, and how to repair rusty/corroded tanks.

Depending on how severe the rust is, the following thread will give you some ideas of how to remove the rust, and some of the commercially available products to seal/treat the inside of the tank to stop rust returning.

http://vfrworld.com/forums/showthre...Rust-from-the-inside-of-Fuel-Tank-Walkthrough

Good luck - if you get a chance maybe post up a photo or two of your impressive bike collection! (its easy - click the insert image icon and then follow the prompts to select and upload an image from your computer).





SkiMad

 

Not much help, but I did apply one of these tank treatments to my GPX about 20 years ago. It worked really well wasn,t too hard to apply and was still working fine (no leaks or rust) over 10 years later. Just follow the instructions and don't rush the process. I can only assume these products have improved in the last twenty years?

 

The tank coatings on the market work well for what they are designed/formulated for. Plugging pinholes is questionable.

Gas can be strained. Riding in Mexico years ago especially in the Baja this was SOP.

 

What I used recently was the Caswell's Plating two part product. It is claimed to work well on pinholes.

 

I'm on 7 years using the caswell epoxy product to fill a multi-pinhole tank with no problems. I give my endorsement to very few products, but this one.