The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area Paint and Body Shop Molasses and water

I just received, as a gift, a 1983 Suzuki GS750ES which was parked in a garage in 1988 with half a tank (2+ gallons) of gas in it. The bike is in as-new condition except for the sludge and rust in the tank. I poured it out. The gas had turned to about 1 gallon of thick gelatinous yellow shellac. I rinsed the tank with a garden hose. The entire surface inside the tank is covered with rust. I :confused: removed the petcock and sending unit and filled the tank with 1 part molasses to 8 parts water. I'd heard of this at work, and did a Google search for "molasses rust removal". I'm leaving it in there till Saturday morning. I'll post the results here.

There are kits to do what you are trying. I believe POR15 makes one. It has a cleaning solution that goes into the tank with some nuts and bolts and gets shaken. This etches and cleans the tank. Then the second solution coats it with something. I hear it works great.

Eastwood has a tank cleaning and sealing kit. look it up at www.eastwood.com. Not sure on price but wasnt much.

Hey it turned that eastwood into a link all by its self! I be dang howed it do that? :confused:

However, the address you gave is to a tourist lodge in the Niagra Falls region.

Try this one www.eastwoodco.com

Id be Dang! Again! That looked like a nice place to visit. Thanks for the correction

well, Jim B., we are waiting to hear how the molasses did????????

The POR15 kit works great, but I'd like to hear how the molasses works.

I just can't understand how butts from little furry critters can get rid of rust. :p

Barry Weeks talked about the molasses rust remover .It does work ,very slowly ,but works well.It took 2 weeks to clean some old truck parts .Can't beat the price , and just throw it behind the garage when you're done

Jeff, nice one.

Molasses and water part 2.
I filled it with the 1 1 partmolasses and 1 part water, 5.2 gallons. I covered the petcock hole with duct tape and had it sitting in a washtub on my basement floor. Next morning I had 5.2 gallons of muck ON my basement floor. Duct tape failure. Hole in the washtub.
I was laughing about this with my neighbor when his brother showed up. He said he knew about molasses and water, but that it takes weeks, not days! It's the phosphoric acid that does it. He suggested that I pour the tank full of pure PineSol floor cleaner and let it sit for four days. The PineSol worked. Basically, what I thought was rust was actually decomposed gasoline residue. The tank itself was galvanized! I drained the PineSol into buckets and will use it to clean the molasses! I blasted the interior of the tank with a pressure washer. It is now good to go.

Jim B,

Now that you have it cleaned, will you seal the inside? The various gas tank restorer kits all seem to use a sealer as the last step.

Tim

I'm not going to seal it. I have read on the motorcycle sites that if you havn't cleaned it and prepped it perfectly the sealer can get pockets in it and the pockets will rust. Because the tank is galvanized with patches where the zinc is missing I'm afraid I'd develop the pockets. I'm going to keep thee tank full, and I've put two cow magnets inside the tank near the petcock. They should grab any floating rust particles that I might not have gotten.