POR 15 Sales Manager says its not for fiberglass??

[Daniel P. McEntee]

I have never used anything other than white vinegar to clean out a tank. Yep, the same cheap stuff you get at the discount grocery store. Put it in the tank straight, and I toss in a hand full of fish tank gravel ( because I had some) and let it sit. Every now and then turn it over and shake it around. The gravel help get flackey stuff loose. Somebody over on VINDURO had the idea of putting a 2 by 6 board on an old BBQ rotissery spit, and attach the tank to the board and turn it slow. You get a rock tumbler type of effect that way. My late brother Jim had a couple of different vinbratory devices in his machine shop, and he just filled the tank with different types of media, tunred it on and walked away for a few days. As for sealing, if the tank is pretty solid and sound, I don't bother. As soon as I get the vinegar out, and I'm satisfied with the results, I flush the tank with a garden hose, then blow out as much water as I can with an air hose. Then I dump in a quart of cheap alchohol and slosh it around to absorb any left over moister, dump that out until it quits dripping , then pour in some premix and slosh it around. I have never had a tank flash over with rust using this method. The first tank I did with this method was on a 250 Husky ten years ago and it still looks good. There is a product out called Evap-o-Rust that gives good results, but is pretty expensive. White vinegar is 3 bucks a gallon or so and I have filtered it and reused it.
   Good luck and have fun,
   Dan McEntee

[ForrestTonkins]

OK, here is an update since it has been a while:

I have been running my PE plastic tank now for some time using the new 10% ethanol gas and have not seen any sign of failure from the POR 15 "Paint" so far, still shinny black. I opted to use the Black color POR 15 inside the yellow Suzuki tank so I can see if there are any failures. And just a note when I put the POR 15 in the tank it took two coats to make sure I had good coverage which I would not have been able to see if I had used the "Clear" POR 15.  

And remember Mike Winters and I are talking about POR 15 "Paint" not the POR 15 "Tank sealer" two different products. Mike has been using it on fiberglass tanks and I am trying it on Plastic Tanks.  Also make sure the tank is clean, I rinsed with Acetone and sheetrock screws until it was coming out clear and clean, and it did take a while to get to that point.

Forrest

[tomale]

This is all very interesting. I have a stock MC5 tank that started to leak around the petcock back in 03 or 4 and I was able to seal it up.   But I removed it from the bike and started using the Clarke plastic tank. But I don't like the way it causes my decals to wrinkle, it have several ideas but I am wondering if using the Por 15 paint would solve this issue?
My other question is will this stuff stick if the tank has had mixed gas in it before, even if you get it clean. I wonder if some of the oil has not leached into the tank making it difficult to get good results long term.
I am wonder what kind of results you would get with a pop bottle if you treated it with 2 stoke mix first.

Thom Green,Still crazy after all these years!
76' 250 MC5 (orginal owner)
74' 1/2 440 maico
70' 400 maico (project)
72' cr125 Husky (project)
93' RMx 250 suzuki
Honda TL 125
2004 Suzuki DL1000

[ForrestTonkins]

The PE tank I am trying it in was one I was running with mixed fuel so we will see but so far so good. I did rinse with acetone until it was coming out clear

[tomale]

Thanks Forrest

Thom Green,Still crazy after all these years!
76' 250 MC5 (orginal owner)
74' 1/2 440 maico
70' 400 maico (project)
72' cr125 Husky (project)
93' RMx 250 suzuki
Honda TL 125
2004 Suzuki DL1000

[454MRW]

The biggest challenge to get POR-15 clear paint to work properly is cleaning all of the oil contamination or remaining residue from the fiberglass. In a few cases, most likely from deterioration or softening of the fiberglass resin coating on the inside of the tank from fuel or Ethanol that has started to break down the sealing quality of the resin to the fiberglass matting in side of the tank.
Once the fiberglass matting has started to soak up fuel and oil, it is difficult or maybe even impossible in some cases, to complete cleanse the oil from the tank without softening the tank into an unusable form. On the other hand, if the resin has resisted fuel/oil contamination, the POR-15 has worked well once the tank was thoroughly cleaned and rinsed with acetone.
Plastic tanks offer more of an initial adhesion resistance, but with the proper preparation with sharp screws or media to rough up the surface, it sounds like it might be a viable option. Mike

Michael R. Winter
I enjoy rebuilding and appreciating Pentons!
1974 250 HS Pentons-1980 KTM 175-400'S
1975 Can Am 175 TNT & 77 250 Black Widow
1979 Husqvarna OR390
1976-78 RM & 77-79 PE Suzuki's
1974 CR250M 07 CR125R 79 CR250R