Rusted fuel tank repair

[Russell King]

A few weeks ago I had trouble with my L185 acting like it was running out of fuel. Added fuel tried to start= no go!
Took off fuel line into filter and no fuel came out of line. Blew air into line and it cleared blockage so I got it running.

A couple weeks go by and same deal.

I take tank off to drain and clean it out and find it has rust in the inside. Figure I would try Por 15 to see how it works. Several small holes appeared in the bottom during the cleaning process using Simple Green. So not much luck coming my way. Por 15 is thin and won't plug holes well, can work but too many steps for me.

Look for new tank and they are discontinued! Messicks has an aftermarket for way too much = $1000 (yes one thousand!).

Search internet and find Caswell Tank liner kits. They are 2 part epoxy kits that can be used for lining rusted tanks. The kits for small tanks are around $50.

Used the Caswell kit and it sealed all the holes. Installed tank and all seems well now.

Hopefully it will hold up and not give any further problems.



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[CountryBumkin]

Glad you fixed it. For anyone else in this situation, check out Eastwood.com they have some great restoration products. I have bought from them many times.
http://search.eastwood.com/search?w=gas tank sealer kit

 

[L.C. Gray]

Have used the Eastwood kit several times with excellent results.

 

[Tooljunkie]

I did a small tank a while back, threw 20 3/8"nuts into tank and then strapped it to rear wheel of my kubota. Jacket it up and put it on stands. At idle picked a gear and let it tumble.

Didnt coat tank, but have done it in the past. Used the por 15 kit. Yup, a lot of steps but worth the trouble.

 

[007kubotaguy]

Hello Russell

If your repair does not workout , I have several fuel tanks for the L245/L185 Kubota's.
Good Luck Lance

 

[torch]

Duct tape on the outside of larger holes works well with POR-15.

 

[Russell King]

Hello Russell

If your repair does not workout , I have several fuel tanks for the L245/L185 Kubota's.
Good Luck Lance

Thanks for the offer I may go ahead and take you up on the offer. I'll send you a PM


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[Russell King]

Hello Russell

If your repair does not workout , I have several fuel tanks for the L245/L185 Kubota's.
Good Luck Lance

Well today I noticed a damp spot underneath the tractor so I assume that my tank has failed again after six years.

If @007kubotaguy has a used one then I will get it replaced with one from him (sent him a private message).

If he has none then I will have to fix it again.

 

[fried1765]

A few weeks ago I had trouble with my L185 acting like it was running out of fuel. Added fuel tried to start= no go!
Took off fuel line into filter and no fuel came out of line. Blew air into line and it cleared blockage so I got it running.

A couple weeks go by and same deal.

I take tank off to drain and clean it out and find it has rust in the inside. Figure I would try Por 15 to see how it works. Several small holes appeared in the bottom during the cleaning process using Simple Green. So not much luck coming my way. Por 15 is thin and won't plug holes well, can work but too many steps for me.

Look for new tank and they are discontinued! Messicks has an aftermarket for way too much = $1000 (yes one thousand!).

Search internet and find Caswell Tank liner kits. They are 2 part epoxy kits that can be used for lining rusted tanks. The kits for small tanks are around $50.

Used the Caswell kit and it sealed all the holes. Installed tank and all seems well now.

Hopefully it will hold up and not give any further problems.



Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

Hopefully that "Caswell" kit included an acid wash, prior to using the epoxy.

 

[Russell King]

Got a fuel tank from #007Kubotaguy and replaced the old tank with that one.

Of course the old tank shutoff valve would not shut off the fuel 100% so had to make a little mess getting the old tank off. Got that all cleaned up but it was really not fun to remove a tank with fuel in it and leaking out. Kubota is nice enough to have a drain plug but it would simply dump the fuel onto the top of the transmission or steering box.

thanks to 007Kubotaguy for having the tank and selling it for a reasonable price.

problem solved again

 

[Russell King]

I had noticed some rust in the bottom of new used tank from 007kubotaguy but installed it anyway due to needing the tractor. Now that I am retired I have more time to work on it so decided to get it cleaned up on the interior.

Yesterday I removed the fuel tank, drained it and started cleaning the interior since it is rusting. Today I cleaned the tank more and used a rust removal acid and paint prep.

That all went well and the tank is now ready to be painted (lined) tomorrow.

I am using a KBS tank seal kit link below since there are no holes to worry with in this tank. I figured that a thinner lining might last longer.

Cycle Tank Sealer - Fuel Tank Sealer - Utility Tank Sealer

The motorcycle tank kit provides enough KBS Klean, RustBlast, and Gold Standard Tank Sealer to treat up to a 5 gallon Tank. Gold Standard Fuel Tank Sealer is a superior, one part, ready-to-use fuel tank sealer that is specifically formulated to stop rust and corrosion.

www.kbs-coatings.com

So far I am happy with the process!

 

[timsch]

I had a rusted tank to deal with a while back. This pic was after I had broken away any deteriorated metal from the bad areas.

For my repair, I used my MIG welder to fill the holes. Aluminum or brass held behind the hole makes this easier. Most of the smaller holes were easy without burning through, but some of the other larger ones I laid a bead around the hole and build up filler on the ID until the hole was gone. Some pinholes remained, which I filled with Seal-All. I put a layer of JB Weld with the cloth reinforcement over the whole bottom area.

It's lasted three years so far.

 

[Russell King]

Your tank had larger but far fewer holes than mine did. I had considered cutting the bottom off and replacing it but found the Caswell kit that used an epoxy that was pretty thick that was able to seal the many pinholes there were.

I never really looked at that first tank lining to see how it failed but may do that. I may even try to strip it and fix it if I ever get too much “time on my hands”. I get compulsive about things sometimes and just want to try to fix things that I don’t really need to fix!

 

[07wingnut]

Any idea why these tanks are rusting? Could it be that there is moisture in the bottom of the tank due to condensation that rust the tank over the years or is it something else?
I have a BX23 which is older but the same design, and it may well be on its last legs as well. Here's hoping.

 

[Russell King]

The tractor is old and came from Louisiana. It had quite a bit of rust on it that indicates it was near the Gulf or sat outside most of its life or both. It had been resurrected by a older man who just “flipped it” to make some cash, so I really don’t know that much about its history.

I assumed the first tank had just sat around with some amount of water in the tank and started rusting.

The second tank came from a salvage yard near San Francisco so again no idea of its history. It appeared to have been inside a warehouse since it was in fairly good shape on the exterior and the inside had just a small patch of rust on the bottom. I kind of thought that the diesel fuel would keep it from getting much worse but that didn’t work out.

I had let the tractor sit for a month or so without much fuel in the tank. I noticed when inspecting the interior that there was some rust on all the walls and around the inside diameter of the filler neck which was not there when I got the tank. I have to assume that is all forming from condensation inside the tank. We have fairly large temperature swings in the fall and winter here in Texas.

So, all that being said, I think it is a few factors. The tank interior has a light coating of something like zinc that appears to wear out over time, fuel probably absorbs some moisture now since it has some bio-deisel in it and not keeping the tank 100% full 100% of the time.

I will try to be better about keeping the tank full but historically I have trouble with that for some reason, apathy and laziness I suppose.

 

[Russell King]

Any idea why these tanks are rusting? Could it be that there is moisture in the bottom of the tank due to condensation that rust the tank over the years or is it something else?
I have a BX23 which is older but the same design, and it may well be on its last legs as well. Here's hoping.

And if you know it is rusting, I recommend that you get it clean and coated before it rusts out. It is a much easier process with a non leaking tank since you can just let the cleaner and rust remover sit in the tank as long as needed instead of it draining out onto the workbench through the rusted out holes!

 

[timsch]

Mine's been around the Gulf coast its whole life as far as I know, so yes, it's condensation in the tank. Regional issues. At least my vehicle's don't rust from salted roads.

 

[Russell King]

Mine's been around the Gulf coast its whole life as far as I know, so yes, it's condensation in the tank. Regional issues. At least my vehicle's don't rust from salted roads.

Vehicles probably rust from driving on the beaches on Bolivar Peninsula though!

 

[whitetiger]

I have a BX23 which is older but the same design, and it may well be on its last legs as well. Here's hoping.

The BX series is a completely different design from the early L series, plus your fuel tank is plastic rather than stamped steel.

 

[Russell King]

Completed the tank repair today by installing the liner paint. It went well and is curing for the next four days then I can fill it with fuel.

The kit I bought was for a five gallon tank and only supplied 8 ounces of the Rust Seal paint. I wasn’t 100% sure that would be enough but the paint was fairly thin so it ended up that about 1/4 to 1/3 of the can was drained out after rotating the tank around for 30 minutes or so. So that made me feel better about that.

There is a tube through the tank that fits around the steering column that was a bit of a concern to get any significant coverage onto the tube. You really can’t see much of it and certainly can’t get anything (like a paint brush) to touch it. I used a small funnel and attached a few inches of clear tubing to the outlet of the funnel. Since you are supposed to pour all the paint in, I poured it into the funnel and directed the outlet of the tube along the tank tube to get as much coverage as I could along the tank tube surface. That seemed to work well for as much of the tank tube surface as you can see so I assume that the whole surface is covered.

After getting the paint into the tank you have to roll the tank on all sides to disperse the paint onto the interior of the tank. That is just tedious since you have to do it for 30 minutes and there are 6 openings in the tank for paint to run out of. Of course you cover those with duct tape but they start leaking after a while. You really can’t see very much of the interior and just have to focus on allowing each surface flat for long enough for the paint to coat the surface and you really have no visible feedback. I decided that taking the tape off the fill port would be okay and would allow some visual feedback on how the paint was flowing. That was a good decision and made for a better process. I was just sure that I had the top surface coated well before removing that tape. I tried to put the tape back on but it would not stick to the surface since there was some paint that had gotten onto the edge of the filler neck. But it still worked fine since there is a little extra extension into the tank of the filler neck that acted like a dam to keep the paint from running out when trying to coat the top surface.

After the 30 minutes you drain the tank of any excess paint and I used the drain for that. The instructions staet to “patiently drain the excess out”. And patient is what they mean! It probably took about 10 minutes for the paint to finally look like it was done. Then I sat the tank so any excess paint would pool where I could see it. After about 5 minutes there was a good amount of pooling but the paint would not drain out any longer. I guess it was too thick to drain or I just couldn’t hold the tank properly so it was hitting the drain. So the instructions state to continue to rotate the tank to keep the paint from pooling thickly. So another 15 to 30 minutes of rotation was enough to get the paint thick enough to stop pooling.