Total Motorcycle Community Forums

so im planning on getting POR-15 and doing the tank sealing jig with my gas tank, but i dont know if the tank has been sealed before. so is there someway to tell if there is a crappy sealer in the tank that failed? or should i just use the POR-15 tank de-sealer anyway, even if there might not be anything there...

look inside it if all you see is rust it probably has never been sealed.
on the ones i have seen where there has been sealer used there is some plastic looking junk inside.most failures on tank sealing come from not waiting long enough for the stuff to dry.

I seal gas tanks as part of what we do for my motorcycle repair business, This is copied from my site and gives you some info on what we use, the POR 15 will after a year or so start to break down and you will find little white specs in your fuel filter from where it has flaked off. You can find out more by going here, http://empiregp.com/ What we use leaves a glass like finish on the inside, it is not that expensive and I can send you a link to where you can purchase it if you are intereseted..Bob




Phenol Novolac Epoxies are a new breed of chemical resistant materials, able to withstand permanent immersion of many harsh solvents, fuels and oils. This Epoxy has much better bond strength than single component products, with strengths of up to 3000 PSI, and this higher strength reduces the need for a clinically clean surface, as the epoxy actually prefers to bond to a rough rusty surface. This new phenol novolac is more thixotropic, which means it ‘hangs’ on the tank walls during the coating process. it will leave a glass like finish on the inside of the tank and you will never have any problems with sealer ever coming lose and clogging a fuel filter, Most tanks are done for $80 plus return shipping, and is especcially recommended if you are restoring an older tank and investing in paint work

I've never heard that about POR before... has anyone out there had this happen? The guys at the XZ 550 forum where tanks are sacred swear by POR and say they have never had any problems with it.

storysunfolding wrote:I've never heard that about POR before... has anyone out there had this happen? The guys at the XZ 550 forum where tanks are sacred swear by POR and say they have never had any problems with it.

I have done a quite a few tanks that someone has tried using it first and had poor results. when I cleaned the tanks I got flakes off in the solvent, besides the tanks were here because they continued to leak, the customers also complained about the fuel filters being pluged with the POR. This may also mean that I am looking at tanks that had the POR process not correctly done and I was seeing just the results, you have to remember we would never see a tank that had used POR sucessfully, but only the ones where it failed

I've looked into it. Apparently if you don't have the tank perfectly dry, this will happen. The best bet I've heard is to do the pretreatments as said and use a hairdryer for an hour to dry it out.

Then I ran into a guy who said that the liners they put in radiators are much nicer and radiator shops will put those in for about $50. So... my new project bike is going to get that as a treatment. I'll let you guys know when it happens... which will be more than two months away currently.

I had a liner put in once on my old Seca. Look in your tank and if it's got a white coating -- it's lined.

I remember it took forever to dry. I had it sitting in a hot corner in the basement by the furnace for a few days and it still was 'gummy'. I used a makeshift paper funnel and a hair dryer for a couple hours on it and it was still 'tacky'.

Was a pain in the "O Ring", if you ask me.

And after a year, the thing started to clog up my fuel system.

What kind of liner did you use?

I'm going to need one because the tanks on the XZ 550's are notorious for rusting through

Tis true. POR application has to be done religiously and very very very patiently over a number of days. If a radiator guy will do ti for you for $50 I think thats the best option since my POR kit cost me about 35 bucks shipped.

Don't know what product was used -- paid a place that specializes in gas tanks up here to do it. THat's all they worked on, so I figured I'd give them a go. Plus it was hard finding a yellow Seca tank. But if you can, I'd recommend finding a brand new tank -- that way, there's no worries about waiting long enough for it to dry, wether or not it'll eventually flake and clog your fuel system etc.

Come to think of it, I've never heard of anyone satisfied with a liner long term before.