Rust removal, cleaning motorcycle gas tanks. Tumbler tumbling.

After my attempts to train pygmy marmosets to use miniature sandblasters inside motorcycle tanks failed miserably (boy, can those little buggers bite!), a week of tinkering yielded this contraption. It works like a charm, actually. A slight modification to a second one under construction will permit somewhat faster and smoother operation although there seems to be little advantage to exceeding 30 rpm or so. I'm using half a litre of varsol and a kilo or so of shattered tempered auto glass (wife's idea). I have to clean a lot of tanks so building this was worth my while.

Category:

Autos & Vehicles

Tags:

• Motorcycle
• gas
• tank
• rust
• removal

[krazytroutcatcher]

I built a similar one about three years ago with a frame that can be pulled over to another angle, it has a tendency to miss the inside top on the tunnel area of the tank but this can easily be blasted off before or after tumbling.

[schlusselmensch]

@krazytroutcatcher Yeah, that seems to be the trouble area of most tanks I've cleaned but it's just a case of leaving it running and reversing it 2 or 3 times a day. I've had a real crusty Metralla tank on there for at least 50 hours. Looking pretty good now.

[MrBevelTech]

Why not just push the R90S off a fucking cliff.

[schlusselmensch]

@MrBevelTech Pointless, the BMW suspension would simply absorb all the impact. 'Course, this bike ran when It was finished so I wouldn't have had to push it.

[schlusselmensch]

I am building a second machine that will use an electric window drive to twist the tank a little bit every revolution. A gell cell battery will just ride along on the rotating frame and a switch for the window motor will make contact for a brief period every revolution. I went to the trouble of obtaining 2 axis tumbling so that every bit of the tank interior surface would be scoured clean. Have you got an old Lanz or a Field Marshal you want to sell me? Hopefully cheap?

[mdirtycreek]

I have been thinking about something like that for old tractor tanks,they can be very rusty and hard to clean.

[schlusselmensch]

@mdirtycreek Don't know if the effort would be worth it for just one tank but I have enough rusty tanks to last me for bloody ever. It's currently working on a Metralla tank that was truly awful inside. There's no reason you could not make something that rotates the tank in one axis and then manually reposition it periodically it so that all the interior surfaces see the abrasive. It actually sounds uncannily like waves crashing on a shore, a quite relaxing background noise.

[2000talon]

Cool, i was wondering how to get rust out of one of my tanks.

[jasoncalhoun2008]

that is so cool i want one

[mdirtycreek]

I have lots of old tractors that are in need of cleaning so I think it would be worth building something.I have an old cement mixer that i am going to try and use.