Hey all - any suggestions on removing light rust from a tank? I've used Rusteco in the past - it works great but is pricey - cus you really need a gallon of the stuff to do a good job...$100 for the liquid and $135 for the gel. You CAN re-use it -which is great but still procey. Rusteco

I've also found a Yamaha product for $40 on CoolRetroBikes.com - a two part system - one removes the rust - the other coats the tank. I'm not a fan of coating gas tank at ALL - I think it's asking for trouble (short of a little motor oil - that's different.) Yamaha Rust remover/treatmment

I don't want to use anything Toxic - my rust is pretty light. I flushed the tank out and it's ready for some type of treatment. Anyone and all thoughts appreciated.

Dave,

This one comes up on the Air Cooled RD forum quite a lot (doesn't it Scott?) as dealing with '70's bikes means lots of tanks have rusty tank internals (and leaks ).

Anyway, to remove rust you do not need to use any sort of chemical, just a bag of small nails or screws (felt tacks are apparently quite good). Having removed your fuel tap (or wreck the flter ) put in a couple of handfuls of the chosen medium, then shake the tank around a lot, then more, then even more and so on until you are happy with the result. Rinse out after removing nails or whatever and away you go. Apparently.

I have never done this myself, but it is well spoken of by those who have.

Andy

Edited December 10, 200519 yr by ANDYROSE

Hey Andy -

I'm going to give this stuff a try - as I have some bolts and other items that rusted while this bike was in storage: Evapo-Rust .

I checked some reviews and they wrere good. I've used a similar product -Rusteco - it worked great but cost 3X the $$$.

I also order a Yamaha carb cleaner: Part # ACC-CARBC-LE-NR.

Threre is a nice page about cleaning the carbs and using this product at:

Carb Clean Tips

And to round things out I order a few fasters and new gaskets for the carbs at bikebandit.com.

Once my manual arrives I'll start with the restoration - and when the center stand comes I'll be even in better shape. I just created a new web page dedicated to the XJ600s project under my signature.

Cheers, Dave

Dave,

This one comes up on the Air Cooled RD forum quite a lot (doesn't it Scott?) as dealing with '70's bikes means lots of tanks have rusty tank internals (and leaks ).

Anyway, to remove rust you do not need to use any sort of chemical, just a bag of small nails or screws (felt tacks are apparently quite good). Having removed your fuel tap (or wreck the flter ) put in a couple of handfuls of the chosen medium, then shake the tank around a lot, then more, then even more and so on until you are happy with the result. Rinse out after removing nails or whatever and away you go. Apparently.

I have never done this myself, but it is well spoken of by those who have.

Andy

Popular subject this is!

The bag-o-nails trick seems to work well for some, although I've never used it myself. I have had good results from sloshing a bit of diesel around in the tank a few times which seemed to work well in the particular scenario I had.

Fortunately.... the 2 bikes I currently have both have tanks in good shape.

But I've been keeping good mental notes on these remedies for rust removal.