Tank De-Rusting with Deox C - My Experience
Jan 18, 2016 12:34:03 GMT 1
seanclarky, beardy, and 1 more like this
Post by looey on Jan 18, 2016 12:34:03 GMT 1
Ok, as this is a subject that affects many people with classic bikes, I thought I'd take the time to share my experience so that is might help others in the future..........
Having seen this product recommended a couple of times by Oldelsieboy and also Mr Marsbar telling me he'd recently had good results with it, I thought I'd have a go.
Up to now, I've always used the Vinegar soaking treatment, but that is a pretty aggressive method and eats petrol taps etc. and if any part of your tank had the original nice shiny silver finish, well say goodbye to that
. It also leaves the newly eaten bare metal finish very venerable which tends to surface flash rust over quicker than you can get the Vinegar out 
.
Yesterday I used the Deox C treatment to clean the rust from the bottom 3 inches of a spare LC tank I have (above that level it is like brand new).
My tank is solid, and only recently had a 2 week leak test absolutely full to the neck with petrol
Here's what I found, and a few tips from what I experienced and what I'd do different next time.......
I made blanking plate for the tap hole using a piece of 3mm ally sheet with holes drilled to match the tap screw holes. I then cut a piece of H/D inner tube to match the plate as the gasket.
I only needed 3 Litres of solution, so mixed 300g of Deox to 2,700ml (100g / 900ml is the recommended mix) of HOT tap water in a cleaned out old 5 Litre plastic Screen wash container.
Now it takes a while to dissolve the powder, so keep it in the container for at least 10 mins or so, giving a good shake from time to time. I didn't mix it for long enough, so even though I got all the water and powder in the tank, after it settled, I had clear water with the powder just sitting in the bottom of the tank
. No problem though, a couple of minutes swishing the solution back & forth in the tank and it soon it had dissolved fully and disappeared to the naked eye.
Next thing I learned........
Whist it does gradually dissolve the rust over time, it does need agitating to get off what it has dissolved. It does not just clean it off sitting there. My solution was gradually turning slightly orange (more piss coloured actually
) but the affected areas still looked 50% as rusty as they had started. The instructions do say to take the item out of the solution and agitate the rust, then re-submerge if further de-rusting is required. Not so easy at the bottom of an LC tank but what I did in the end was gently (ish) swish the solution from the front to back of the tank in like a wave motion and sure enough it just became cleaner and cleaner over a few minutes until the tank surface was perfectly clean and silver 
.
Now my solution had been in there for about 8 hrs, so who knows at what point it had done it's work, but if I was doing it again I would leave it for a few hours, then give the solution a swish about every hour or so until the surface has become clean and silver. I fairly sure in my case that it would probably have been long before the 8 hours mine was in soak without any intervention.
After that, drain and filter the solution back into your container (can be used again and again until it turns black apparently), then I stuck the garden hose in there and ran it for 30 seconds or so to flush all the solution out. I then got it dry inside as quickly as poss with a combination of shaking the tank with the tap hole open, then kitchen roll, then a hairdryer.
You will get a tiny bit of surface rust re-appear but hardly anything.
Here's some pics of before and after (not great pics but you can see what it achieved)
Having seen this product recommended a couple of times by Oldelsieboy and also Mr Marsbar telling me he'd recently had good results with it, I thought I'd have a go.
Up to now, I've always used the Vinegar soaking treatment, but that is a pretty aggressive method and eats petrol taps etc. and if any part of your tank had the original nice shiny silver finish, well say goodbye to that
. It also leaves the newly eaten bare metal finish very venerable which tends to surface flash rust over quicker than you can get the Vinegar out 
.Yesterday I used the Deox C treatment to clean the rust from the bottom 3 inches of a spare LC tank I have (above that level it is like brand new).
My tank is solid, and only recently had a 2 week leak test absolutely full to the neck with petrol
Here's what I found, and a few tips from what I experienced and what I'd do different next time.......
I made blanking plate for the tap hole using a piece of 3mm ally sheet with holes drilled to match the tap screw holes. I then cut a piece of H/D inner tube to match the plate as the gasket.
I only needed 3 Litres of solution, so mixed 300g of Deox to 2,700ml (100g / 900ml is the recommended mix) of HOT tap water in a cleaned out old 5 Litre plastic Screen wash container.
Now it takes a while to dissolve the powder, so keep it in the container for at least 10 mins or so, giving a good shake from time to time. I didn't mix it for long enough, so even though I got all the water and powder in the tank, after it settled, I had clear water with the powder just sitting in the bottom of the tank
. No problem though, a couple of minutes swishing the solution back & forth in the tank and it soon it had dissolved fully and disappeared to the naked eye.Next thing I learned........
Whist it does gradually dissolve the rust over time, it does need agitating to get off what it has dissolved. It does not just clean it off sitting there. My solution was gradually turning slightly orange (more piss coloured actually
) but the affected areas still looked 50% as rusty as they had started. The instructions do say to take the item out of the solution and agitate the rust, then re-submerge if further de-rusting is required. Not so easy at the bottom of an LC tank but what I did in the end was gently (ish) swish the solution from the front to back of the tank in like a wave motion and sure enough it just became cleaner and cleaner over a few minutes until the tank surface was perfectly clean and silver 
.Now my solution had been in there for about 8 hrs, so who knows at what point it had done it's work, but if I was doing it again I would leave it for a few hours, then give the solution a swish about every hour or so until the surface has become clean and silver. I fairly sure in my case that it would probably have been long before the 8 hours mine was in soak without any intervention.
After that, drain and filter the solution back into your container (can be used again and again until it turns black apparently), then I stuck the garden hose in there and ran it for 30 seconds or so to flush all the solution out. I then got it dry inside as quickly as poss with a combination of shaking the tank with the tap hole open, then kitchen roll, then a hairdryer.
You will get a tiny bit of surface rust re-appear but hardly anything.
Here's some pics of before and after (not great pics but you can see what it achieved)
