# Cleaning a rusty gas tank and sealing



## JLawrence08648 (Jan 15, 2017)

I'm fortunate to have a ultrasonic cleaner. I found the best way to clean rusty gas tanks is to fill the gas tank and cleaner tank with apple cider vinegar. I did not try white vinegar. I do it twice using clean vinegar the second time and straining the vinegar after each use. It comes out so clean but it's now really bare metal and will rust so fast. So it needs the sealed. One of the best products for sealing is Kreem. Google it for more information. But essentially you pour it in, swish it around, let it dry. It will seal small cracks and pinholes.

If your tank is spotless, you can get away with the sealer. If not they sell a cleaner and conditioner which I've never used. But I'm sure the conditioner helps the sealer stick better.

The sealer is $25 to do a 3 gallon tank and $50 for the cleaner, conditioner, and sealer.


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## UNDERTAKER (Dec 30, 2013)

Check this one out....Fuel System Restoration


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## snowflitesly (May 5, 2016)

JLawrence08648 said:


> ......I found the best way to clean rusty gas tanks is to fill the gas tank and cleaner tank with apple cider vinegar. ........



And it is awesome rust remover, makes u wonder wth is it doing at the grocery store!!!!! Makes u wonder of everything else they are passing as ''food'' or edible.....


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## oljm (Aug 22, 2016)

I tried plain white vinegar on a nasty flaky tank. It worked good, but needed a lot of patience.
I had it soaking for 2 weeks, and vigorously shoke, emptied it out, filtered and resoaked it every day.
Got it good enough where the places I can see with the naked eye are cleaned down to the bare shiny metal.
Rinsed it good and finished off with some rust out and some baking soda. Quickly sun dried the tank before it flash rusted. (This was a hot summer day.) I didn't seal it. Tank has been fine for close to a year full of gas.

I had some muriatic acid on standby, but didn't want to risk blowing a hole in the tank. Vinegar seemed to be a good solution if you have the patience and time.

BTW, I heard you can also use electrolysis to get rid of the rust. But I didn't try that route.


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## JLawrence08648 (Jan 15, 2017)

I tried a few things in my ultrasonic cleaner, baking soda, coke, tartaric acid, none of those really worked, apple cider vinegar worked well. I used the apple cider vinegar because I had it leftover from making pickles. I make the best. Long considered marketing them.

Ran it twice in the ultrasonic cleaner for 30 minutes each time. First time filthy, strained out the rust. The inside of the tank looked almost perfect and usable. The second run was just in case and to clean up a few spots.


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## snowflitesly (May 5, 2016)

Worcestershire sauce is made with apple cider vinegar. I make that every so often when I make my homemade bbq sauce. I also drink pepsi (or coca cola). I know these things are acidic as they chew through metal oxidation like children on candy. It must clean the digestive system I suppose, hehe.


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## RedOctobyr (Mar 2, 2014)

JLawrence08648, curious, how big is your ultrasonic cleaner? Mine is a decent size, at 1.5gal/6L. But I think I'd have a tough time getting a gas tank into it. 

Good tip regardless! I love my cleaner so far, it's been practically magic with some stuff.


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## drmerdp (Feb 9, 2014)

I cleaned up a rusty tank on a Kawasaki 600. It was a kit, cleaner that dissolves and etches away the rust, then a sealer. All of which gets simply sloshed around. 

Worked well. It was the Kreem combo kit, only 40 bucks.


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## Jackmels (Feb 18, 2013)

+1 on the Cider Vinegar. Let it Sit Overnight, and Voila!


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## JLawrence08648 (Jan 15, 2017)

RedOctobyr said:


> JLawrence08648, curious, how big is your ultrasonic cleaner? Mine is a decent size, at 1.5gal/6L. But I think I'd have a tough time getting a gas tank into it.
> 
> Good tip regardless! I love my cleaner so far, it's been practically magic with some stuff.


I'm not sure unless I put water in it from a gallon jug, I seldom fill it from that, but if I have to guess, 1.5 gal. The gas tank I put in was from a lawnmower, vertical shaft.

Tell me about your ultrasonic cleaner, brand, wattage, age, cost, heater. Mine is a very old lab unit in two parts, power unit and tub, without a heater but the solution can get very hot.


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## RedOctobyr (Mar 2, 2014)

Mine is a Branson 3210R-DTH. It's also more of a lab-oriented product, vs consumer, I got it used for $100 shipped on eBay. The ultrasonic aspect is 130W, with 205W of heaters, it holds 1.5 gallons. I like it, it has a digital timer (up to 99 minutes), a degas function, and temperature control up to 69C (156F). I don't know the age, if I was to guess, I'd say maybe 10-15 years old? 

You can get Chinese ultrasonic cleaners cheap on eBay, big stainless units, but I worry about how well they work, and what happens if they break. Branson is an established company in ultrasonics, so I felt better going with a well-used cleaner from them, vs a new cheapie with no support. 

I've tried a few cleaning solutions, I've gotten good results with Simple Green HD, which is also supposed to be safe for aluminum (whereas regular Simple Green can be tough on aluminum). SG HD is what I typically use.


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## JLawrence08648 (Jan 15, 2017)

Mine is 20-35 yrs old from a lab manufacturer that is no longer in business. I read negative things about Simple Green, glad you told me about HD. Do you dilute? How shiny looking clean does yours come out? If shiny can you attribute that to SGHD or the ultrasonic cleaner?

I soak mine in Berryman ChemDip for 30 minutes then use same in the UL cleaner, run it for 30 minutes, sometimes 60. This year I'm soaking in Napa carb cleaner then running in the chemdip.

The Chinese UL cleaner are junk. Only a name brand.

How long do you put the heater on before you run the ultrasonic?


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## RedOctobyr (Mar 2, 2014)

I dilute it, I think I was doing 1:5 SG:water. To save cleaner, if I'm cleaning little stuff, I'll fill the tank with water. Then I put in a glass jar of cleaning solution, and put the parts in that. I put it in the tank water, though making sure the top of the (open) jar stays above the water level. 

I heat the solution before starting, I bring it to 60C (140F). Starting with hot tap water makes that quicker, as does covering the tank. I degas the solution for about 15 minutes, then start cleaning. 

The parts I've cleaned have come out shiny and looking great. I thought I had a bunch of before/after pics of things from when I started using it, but I'm having a hard time finding them at the moment. I did find a few, however, of a chainsaw carb I did, which I'm attaching. The outside was nasty, with oily sawdust. This was without any physical scrubbing, just using the ultrasonic with Simple Green HD. 

I did some testing with different cleaning solutions. I tried Palmolive dish soap, ultrasonic jewelry cleaner solution, Pine-Sol, and the Simple Green HD. I got the best results with SG:HD. Some things weren't affected by the other cleaners at all. 

I tried to understand the effect of the ultrasonics itself, vs the SG:HD, vs both. I found that ultrasonics with just water didn't do much, and just soaking in cleaner without ultrasonics was also not very effective. But using both together, heated, was impressive.


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## JLawrence08648 (Jan 15, 2017)

The way it's supposed to be done for maximum cleaning, put your parts in a basket and the basket needs to be suspended off the floor of the tank. I had a conversation with the sales mgr of a major US builder of ultrasonic cleaners. She specifically told me not to put it in a basket that touches the tank, and no way in a glass. I was using two open mesh wire stationary baskets where they had foam on the bottom to insulate. It seemed to clean fine but was told No. Ok.

Yours sure are shiny. I preclean all my parts in gasoline.

I did a carb for a neighbour's snowblower that only ran on full choke. Soaked in Berryman's ChemDip it ran on one choke. Following year put it in the ultrasonic cleaner and ran on no choke.


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## RedOctobyr (Mar 2, 2014)

Sorry, I didn't explicitly mention that. Yes, I made a rack, so that the parts, jar, whatever, are not sitting on the bottom of the tank. The rack hangs from the top of the tank. As you said, nothing should touch the bottom of the tank. 

Cleaning parts that are in a glass jar was ok, from what I read online. And I've cleaned my carb parts that way, it's worked fine. Give it a shot if it would be helpful. I tilt the jar to get rid of the air bubble under it, then put it on the rack. 

I don't preclean parts in another solution. I do have a jar of dirty SG:HD, gross things can run through that first, if it seems useful. Then I can clean them in a jar of fresh stuff. You can also run your cleaning solution through a coffee filter to get stuff out of it.


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## NRP (Dec 28, 2015)

I just restored one of these gas tanks. The tank I worked on did not have major pitted rust, but it was enough that the apple cider vinegar didn't remove everything. I ended up using a product called Oxisolv, which has been replaced by another product called Fast Etch, and is carried by Eastwood company. It dissolves rust, is water soluble, and leaves a zinc-phosphate coating after it dries. It was very easy to use, did a great job, and a container of it was less than 10 bucks. Eastwood sells a whole kit for restoring gas tanks depending how far you want to take your project.


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## dbert (Aug 25, 2013)

I'm guessing that Oxisolv is oxalic acid. 
I've used it to remove rust before and it works well. If anyone else is interested just Google;
Oxalic acid rust remover


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## JLawrence08648 (Jan 15, 2017)

NRP said:


> I just restored one of these gas tanks. The tank I worked on did not have major pitted rust, but it was enough that the apple cider vinegar didn't remove everything. I ended up using a product called Oxisolv, which has been replaced by another product called Fast Etch, and is carried by Eastwood company. It dissolves rust, is water soluble, and leaves a zinc-phosphate coating after it dries. It was very easy to use, did a great job, and a container of it was less than 10 bucks. Eastwood sells a whole kit for restoring gas tanks depending how far you want to take your project.





dbert said:


> I'm guessing that Oxisolv is oxalic acid.
> I've used it to remove rust before and it works well. If anyone else is interested just Google;
> Oxalic acid rust remover


Thanks NRP for the Eastwood tip. Eastwood advertises on a show I watch, My Classic Car.

I tried Oxalic acid, it was in the form of deck cleaner, a powder, it did nothing. The apple cider vinegar worked the best however Eastwood is a quality company and I would try their next depending on the quantity and cost, for a mower gas tank? Eastwood is a car servicing company for car gas tanks.


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## dhazelton (Dec 8, 2014)

Unless you have pinholes in a gas tank sealers may cause more problems than they solve. But if you have to Redkote or a product from Caswell Plating are supposed to play well with ethanol. I've seen Kreemed tanks get all flaky and the stuff peels up inside. 

I cleaned the fuel tank of Honda Trail 90 with white vinegar (it was on the shelf in the laundry room) and then I neutralized it with water and baking soda. Then I blew it out with air and IMMEDIATELY sprayed the interior with fogging oil to coat it.


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## 524SWE (Jan 20, 2017)

No matter how I've cleaned gas tanks I never take a chance on the sealer, I always add a fuel filter just in case.


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