sorry/not sorry to resurrect a very dead thread here but I am going on monday to a local radiator repair specialist who offers a tank sealing/recon service. will post results and methods here if the guy will share with me, which i will make sure of since i have access to various torture devices and am quite handsome and friendly . soon their secrets shall be ours. cheerio and jah bless.
ask if the coating will stand up to ethanol/alcohols, and what the coating is. Rad shop here offers the same service, but it's MEK based and ethanol will slowly dissolve it.
I'm through with plastic coatings. Issue is adhesion and they all flake off over time. My next tank is getting metal plating next. Electroless nickel perhaps...
When I spoke to the guy on the phone last week he said it was impervious to ethanol and would last longer than the bike. I've got to get some dents taken out of the replacement tank before I get it coated which is why I haven't done it yet but will let you guys know.
I've just spoken to the guy - he uses Red-Kote. Anyone had experience with it? Apparently a solvent-based polymer coating. edit: just seen mishdog has used it and had good results. Great to know it's not bunk. Plan to drop it off to him today.
Red-Kote is MEK based. According to oreilly auto Q&A on it, 10% ethanol should be okay, but that's not what the rad shop told me when I had a tank treated with it. Then again the bike with that tank is still on the road last I heard.
Right so I should scope out a fuel supplier's specifications and make sure I am running 10% or less ethanol ?
Hopefully they post it on the pumps like they do here. If not, I'd be looking to move out of that awful place
I have a few bandit tanks that need dent repair and lining needed. Got nearly everything needed to do an electrolysis clean and my old man's cement mixer but.... What's the recommended max time period between cleaning the tank to getting the lining done? I'm going to save a few quid by prepping the tank for redkote to be done by a professional.
Nope, but I'm sure I could call around and find out. And yeah, moving to Australia at the end of the year... NZ is great if you're rich, which I most certainly am not
I did a quick bit of research on this, was contemplating zinc plating so researched that, so off to youtube I went. Seems that you need to create a saturated zinc solution first with zinc for both cathode and anode Only difficulty I foresee is that it's near impossible to get all of the air out of a tank, so it would likely need to be done in several stages with the tank mostly full and oriented in a few different positions, or perhaps over half full done on both sides. It would be good to never worry about rust again
Yeah, I figured I'd do 2 passes. Second with tank upside down. I think tin may be most durable. Planning on running E85, so need toughest coating possible.
Found ready-made tin-zinc kit. https://www.eastwood.com/ew-electroplating-system-tin-zinc.html Nickel plating kit - https://caswellplating.com/electrop...-plating-kits/nickel-electroplating-kits.html Good background paper on plating: NASA-PlatingMethods.pdf Article on Caswell's kit: Walnecks Classic Cycle Trader 2007
Noticed this comment which appears to be from Eastwood themselves on that store page · a year ago I noticed some rust inside the fuel filler and vent tube on my 1986 GMC C1500. After removing the rust, will the Tin-Zinc Electroplating System keep the rust from coming back? And how well will the plating stand up to continuous contact with fuel? 1 answer ZachC · a year ago We do not recommend this product for an application that will be exposed to constant submersion to fuel.
I also found this, a compendium of old posts on a website that is dedicated to electroplating among other things. Seems like some good or at least interesting information there from people that seem to know their stuff. https://www.finishing.com/329/51.shtml
Yup, type of metal coating makes difference. Just like you don't want to coat inside of tank with oatmeal, copper and zinc aren't suitable candidates either. Certain alloys such as terne (solder) have lasted over 100-yrs and are now attacked by ethanol fuels. Stick with tin or nickel.
