Fuel tank......any baffles inside?

[Snaggletooth]

Ok.....I'm down to the tricky part. After dealing with the rust in my tank I'm down to applying the epoxy resin tomorrow. The tank looks a lot better than it did and the epoxy should solve any future rust issues.

 

My question is, are there any interior baffles in the neck of the tank? I noticed while I was shaking the tank with a handful of grabber screws and a tube of BB's that very few made it into the filler neck.

 

Using an inspection mirror I could not see anything in the upper neck but couldn't get that good of a look up inside. The only "baffle" I can see is the neck of the filler tube going down into the neck a few inches. Anything other than that?

 

Just trying to figure the surface area so I mix enough epoxy to cover EVERYTHING!

 

Thanks

Edited August 31, 2009 by Snaggletooth

[Squidley]

Mike,

I am 99% sure that there are no baffles in the fuel tank, I have never seen any in as many times as I have had the float gauge out, I think your safe

[Snaggletooth]

Thanks Squidley.

 

Just kind of wondering. Couldn't see any indication of welds on the outside of the neck that there might be anything welded inside.

 

Gotta go get the IcyHot now. Spent the afternoon preping the tank for tomorrow. After shaking that thing several times with a pound of hardware inside and a 1/2 gallon of Acetone I know where the muscules are in my shoulders. LOL!

 

Might need to pick up a new blow dryer tomorrow to. My High Tech Tank Drying System may have met its match today.

[MiCarl]

The filler neck has a sleeve that protrudes down into the tank an inch or two. I believe this is to force an air pocket for expansion if you over fill. That sleeve will make it tough to dump BBs, bolts etc out.

[mbrood]

Bolts and BBs come out through either the fuel petcock or the fuel gauge hole.

[Snaggletooth]

Yepper guys I got past all that already. To treat the tank the petcock and the fuel sender had to come out anyway. Just a reminder to anyone doing this in the future make sure ALL the screws you put in the tank are STEEL! I had a few mixed in that were nonmagnetic and man was it fun fishing those lil buggers out with a grabber. Always the lil guys!

 

But anyway I just finished the epoxy treatment about a hour ago. Went well. The epoxy comes in a two part system. The part "A" is 16 oz and part "B" is 8 oz. According the the info that should treat a 10 gallon tank or two, 5 gallon tanks. As our 1st gens are about 5.3 if I remember right I decided to mix the whole batch rather than try for two coats. I figured if I missed a spot the first time I'd probably miss it the second time also.

 

So I shot both cans into my mixing container and gave them a nice stir for about 4 minutes. Gotta go slow with this stuff as it does develope bubbles pretty easy. I had the sender and petcock holes closed off and poured in the 16 oz's of epoxy and banded the filler neck closed with a freezer bag. Spent the next 15 minutes rotating the tank to cover the interior as this stuff is thick. At 20 minutes I removed the cover plate from the petcock hole and let the remainder drain out. I made a good call on using the entire 16 oz's as I only recovered a little less than 3 oz's of leftover epoxy.

 

So now I let it cure for a couple of days. The leftover epoxy is already set up and getting hard. The tank looks like I got full coverage as best I can tell with an inspection mirror.

 

Got the carbs and fuel pump cleaned out of the rust that got through the filter and all new lines going on the fuel system. Installing a better filter and going to try to relocate it or modify the mounting bracket for easier access. Get that screw facing the outside of the bike so you can reach it.

 

With the holiday weekend coming up I'm hoping to be riding again by Thursday.

 

Now we shall see if it holds up better than the latex treament.

 

Gotta go.