Lightly rusty gas tank?

[GS500LAWTON]

Hello,
Me again....I got the fuel cap off...thank you all...
Now when I look down into the tank. there is light rusting. It does not look "real" bad. What have some of you done to alleviate rust from gas tanks.
Thanks again,
Dan

[bigfatcat]

A couple lite rust spots about 2 inches diameter in my '95 when I bought it 6 yrs ago - didn't do anything, have had no problems ... (po already installed an inline filter)

[noiseguy]

Drain, fill with vinegar, let set a few days, drain/dry/refill with gas. Takes longer than strong acid but less likely to fume yourself / eat up the paint.

Or just leave it alone.

[The Buddha]

Leave it be - cos anything you do will remoive the pityfully thin zink they have put on it by accident.

Of course the main rust is in the welds, which you cannot see.

If you treat it, you have to coat it. If the tank is nice other wise, drain it, dry it wihtout using water ... dry as a bone, then put in acetone about a pint - rinse with it and be very careful it will eat paint. You need to close the filler cap with a round plate with bolt holes and inner tube as a gasket, and inner tube in the petcock after removing the pickup strainer - so its essentially air tight ... get it sloshed and dried off the acetone - repeat - repeat ... repetetive process dries and cleans better than using a lot @ 1 run ... Then coat it with kreem. Thin it with acetone and use very little, like 1/3rd the bottle and dilute with 1 part of acetone.

That bypasses the acid step ... only if you know you only have that light rust in 1 spot. If you did ti right and guessed right that it had just that 1 spot of rust, OK you'd have coted the tank with very thin coating of kreem leaving the super thin zinc they put on it. However if there is more rust, the zinc coating is nearly done, better off acid etching and coating.

BTW coating dries painfully slow in this cold weather. So do it in july or so.

Cool.
Buddha.

[GS500LAWTON]

Well,
upon further inspection of the interior of the tank...it is rusted pretty badly. Anyone have a tank for a 89-2002 they wanna sell?
Dan

[mab32]

Oh oh....
I could use one of those 89-2002 tanks as well !
This project is nickle and dimeing me to death, oh well love it anyway.
Seriously, any tanks out there ??

[adidasguy]

FYI: Compatibility is 1989-2000.  Then 2001+, which is the larger tank.