Gas Tank Electrolysis

[DMB]

I have a very very rusty tank. Look at this thread to hear all about it. So I finally started on my tank this evening (morning) at 12:40am on May 22, 2008 (so I don't forget when I started this thing) after a few glitches in the past few days. First off the original battery charge I bought was too smart. It was an automatic and it only charged when it sensed that it was hooked up to a battery. So I went and got a manual charger and it works great. I mixed up 5 gallons of water with 1/2 cup of washing soda. This also took two tries. The first time I put the washing soda in a 5 gallon bucket and then the water but the washing soda turned into a big hard chunk in the bottom. So I dumped that out and then filled the bucket with hot water and then slowly poured in the washing soda and stirred at the same time.

I made an electrode out of a coat hang. Took about half an hour of tweaking it to get it to fit in the tank without touching anything.

I next filled the tank with the washing soda and water solution and put the electrode in and hooked it up to the battery charger. And it worked because I got no sparks (well, not on purpose anyways, I touched the electrode to the splash guard inside the tank just to make sure it was working and I got a spark).

(Yes, I am doing it in the second bedroom again. Figured since my girlfriend is already not happy for me using it as a shop, might well just keep on going.)

This is what the top looks like.

And this was about 5 minutes into it.

I'll keep you updated as this thing progresses. With pics, I promise.

 

[BassCliff]

Hi Mr. DMB,

I applaud your ingenuity. Are you sure you're not some evil scientist creating some weird mutant life form? It looks like the Creature from the Black Lagoon could crawl out of your tank.

Good luck with the cleaning. If you're tank is really bad it may take a few treatments. Keep us informed.

Thank you for your indulgence,

BassCliff

 

[Guest]

nice tutorial, thanks!

nice tutorial, thanks!

i was going to comment on the immaculately clean workarea, then i read about "the bedroom" ... uhm, well done :-D

 

[Nessism]

Great job! Keep us posted on your progress.

I've read where there needs to be line of site between the wall of the tank and the electrode for the rust removal to work. You might have to move the electrodes a few times to get all areas of the tank.

One trick that helps see what's going on inside the tank is to shine a strong flashlight into the main tank opening and look in though the petcock hole. There will be enough indirect light to get a pretty good idea what's going on inside.

Good luck.

 

[DMB]

Excited

Excited

Ok, this morning I got up and was excited to see what was happening. So I pulled the electrode out and this is what I saw after 8 hours:

Pretty cool. So I went outside and cleaned it off with a wire brush and came back inside and put it back in the tank and hooked it all back up. Working again. Seeing 2 amps on the meter. Went and did the dishes and came back and looked at the meter again. This time it was registering almost nothing. So I pulled the electrode out again and it looked just like it does above. Cleaned it off and back in and 2 amps. Come back 10 minutes later and the same thing. Pull it out and it is full. Guess today I am just going to have to keep a close eye on it.

So now my next question is do I change out the washing soda and water solution tonight after 24 hours, or do I just keep using the same solution for the whole run?

 

[tkent02]

Not sure if it's necessary, but when you change the solution a ton of rust will come out, rinse and slosh it and more comes out. I also put a longer wire down to the rear of the tank on both sides, insulated from touching the sides of the tank with sections of wine cork in several places. Think it gets the rust farther back in the tank.
So how clean is it getting inside?

 

[DMB]

Not sure if it's necessary, but when you change the solution a ton of rust will come out, rinse and slosh it and more comes out. I also put a longer wire down to the rear of the tank on both sides, insulated from touching the sides of the tank with sections of wine cork in several places. Think it gets the rust farther back in the tank.

Good idea with the cork, but I don't think that I would be able to fit it in the hole.

So how clean is it getting inside?

I am going to change the solution tonight and I will know then. To dirty and dark to see anything through it.

 

[tkent02]

Good idea with the cork, but I don't think that I would be able to fit it in the hole.

Just small sections of cork, they will fit.

 

[rustybronco]

So now my next question is do I change out the washing soda and water solution tonight after 24 hours, or do I just keep using the same solution for the whole run?

have you seen this? http://users.eastlink.ca/~pspencer/nsaeta/electrolysis.html

 

[DMB]

have you seen this? http://users.eastlink.ca/~pspencer/nsaeta/electrolysis.html

I had not. Thanks.

 

[DMB]

23 hours later

23 hours later

So I decided to change out the washing soda and water solution so I could get a good look in the tank. It looks a lot better, but still far from perfect. I am thinking at least another 2-3 maybe even 4 days. But who knows, we'll just have to wait and see. This is what it looks like now (I wish I had some way to get a picture looking through the petcock hole).

This is what it looked like when I started.

 

[Nessism]

Are you sure all the brown gunk is rust, looks like there might be some varnish mixed in from the old gas. Not sure electrolysis is going to do much good on any varnish.

 

[Schweisshund]

You actually do not need a battery charger. Have you got an old 12V adapter lying around? :-D

http://www.mycoincollecting.com/collecting/cleaning-coins-electrolysis.html

 

[seuadr]

You actually do not need a battery charger. Have you got an old 12V adapter lying around? :-D

http://www.mycoincollecting.com/collecting/cleaning-coins-electrolysis.html

its kind of odd they had this on a coin collecting site.. i thought removing the corrosion negetivly impacted the authenticity and value

 

[DMB]

Are you sure all the brown gunk is rust, looks like there might be some varnish mixed in from the old gas. Not sure electrolysis is going to do much good on any varnish.

The black that you see is varnish. I can wipe that out with my finger. But there was still a fair amount of rust farther down in the tank. I might have to re-work the electrodes to get farther down there.

 

[Nessism]

The black that you see is varnish. I can wipe that out with my finger. But there was still a fair amount of rust farther down in the tank. I might have to re-work the electrodes to get farther down there.

At your next pause point you might want to de-varnish the tank. Not sure what would be appropriate other than carb cleaner or maybe a hot TSP solution?

Keep up the good work.

BTW, saw some nice large rubber stoppers at Lowe's in the hardware section. Might be a good way to positively hold those electrodes dangling inside the tank.