Extra home workshop time

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David Lahey
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Extra home workshop time

Postby David Lahey » Sat Mar 21, 2020 12:57 pm

I'm anticipating that the precautions required to limit corona virus contagion will provide extra opportunities to have workshop fun and finish some twinshock trials projects and I might as well post up here some things I'm working on.
I'm still going to work for now but that will probably change pretty soon.
Some new tyres just arrived and the first thing I always do with rear tyres is to fit a tube in them to hold the lips apart. If they are left like this for a few weeks they retain the gap between the lips even after the tube is taken out.
It makes fitting them on tubeless rims easier but also makes it easier when fitting them to tube-type rims because you are not having to keep pulling the lips apart.
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Re: Extra home workshop time

Postby Twinshock200 » Sat Mar 21, 2020 4:54 pm

Good tip David.


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PA
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Re: Extra home workshop time

Postby PA » Sat Mar 21, 2020 8:34 pm

You can also use 5 beer cans to spread the beads. The sixth can is to be drunk after successfully installing the 5 cans in the tyre. You get to have the five beers when you are install the tyre.



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Re: Extra home workshop time

Postby Mark K » Sat Mar 21, 2020 11:09 pm

PA wrote:You can also use 5 beer cans to spread the beads. The sixth can is to be drunk after successfully installing the 5 cans in the tyre. You get to have the five beers when you are install the tyre.
No. Put the tube in the tyre, and the six beers in the fridge. Then you can install the tyre when you want or need, and you can drink the nice cold beers when you want.



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Re: Extra home workshop time

Postby David Lahey » Sun Mar 22, 2020 10:28 am

Another little thing happening here at home is the de-rusting of this TY250A tank internals.
I've been preparing some bikes for the local Historical Motor Cycle Club Easter bike show and one of the bike categories that they wanted good numbers for was "barn find".
There were two suitable bikes in my shed at the time. One was an extremely weathered KT250 from a tip shop and the other was a local TY250A that a friend had seen on facebook classifieds and bought for me, thinking that I would want it.
The KT was ruled out for the show due to the rear wheel being frozen up with corrosion. The TY250A seemed perfect but there was mention of not allowing bikes in the show that leaked fluid due to the fancy polished timber floor at the hall where the show was planned for.
The TY250A had been leaking something onto my shed floor and it looked like it was coming from the forks so I decided to drain the forks. Another rule was that there could only be a limited amount of petrol in the tank due to fire risk. When I started draining the tank I was shocked at the colour of the petrol coming out. It looked quite white, probably due to the amount of water in suspension so I kept going and completely emptied the tank. There were water droplets in there too.
Now I had a problem. If I de-rusted the inside of the tank at that point, it would no longer be an unmolested barn find and I also ran the risk of affecting the existing awesome patina if I did something that affected the outside of the tank. So I decided to leave the tank rusty inside for the bike show. At that point I wanted to spray the insides with WD40 to stop further rusting until after the bike show but that would mean I would have to go through the internal degreasing process again due to the WD40 preventing the derusting liquid from working. My compromise action was to dry the tank out fully and keep it dry until after the bike show. Step 1 was tip out the wet and rusty petrol. Step 2 was to wash out as much loose rust as I could with clean petrol. Step 3 was to wash out the residual petrol and water with metho and tip that out. Step 4 was to put the tank out in the sun for a few hours. Step 5 was to heat up the tank using my trusty electric frypan. I heated the tank to about 80 degrees for an hour or so. The rust inside looked very dry after that.
Fast forward to a week ago and the corona virus precautions meant that the Easter bike show was cancelled and I could finally start cleaning the rust out of the tank.
I usually completely immerse steel fuel tanks in the de-rusting liquid but this one has the original paint and such great patina I want to try and not stuff up the outside so it has been carefully set up on blocks at an angle that wets the whole inside surface.
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Re: Extra home workshop time

Postby Bully fanatic » Sun Mar 22, 2020 12:46 pm

I have used Molasses on a Bultaco Metralla petrol tank and that worked really well David. I just filled the tank up and left it for a couple of weeks and then emptied it and cleaned it all out again. Worked really well without harming the pain on the outside of the tank.



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Re: Extra home workshop time

Postby 18ss » Sun Mar 22, 2020 2:20 pm

There is all ways soaking it with citric acid in the manner you have chosen. If there is the slightest bit of unseen rust under the paint work full immersion in a bath will find it and therefore lift the paint, plus it is quicker than molasses and doesn't have the same scent. Despite having used molasses in the past I was never comfortable having a sugar based product in a petrol tank.



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Re: Extra home workshop time

Postby David Lahey » Sun Mar 22, 2020 7:31 pm

OK here's a Dr Karl question for everyone about the fuel tank.
I filled it to the top yesterday with a mixture of diluted molasses and phosphoric acid and made sure I got all the bubbles out. That's when I took the photos. This afternoon I checked on it and the level had gone down - see today's photo. None had leaked out. It took 35 ml to fill it to the top again. Why?????
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Re: Extra home workshop time

Postby Kurt » Sun Mar 22, 2020 8:43 pm

You would lose volume as the reaction creates hydrogen gas as a product, so the overall amount of matter in the tank is reducing.
Other option is insects discovered what they thought was a honey hole of food.

What is the ratio of molasses to water?



David Lahey
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Re: Extra home workshop time

Postby David Lahey » Sun Mar 22, 2020 10:01 pm

I like your thinking Kurt. You can usually see bubbles surfacing after a few days. Pretty sure that's what formed the froth in the photo.

The molasses came as a liquid from the local feed barn with a viscosity similar to raw honey and I diluted it about 1 molasses to 4 water and kept it in a 20 litre plastic bucket. This is the third fuel tank that has been treated with that batch of molasses and along the way I have added a total of about 200ml of commercial strength rust converter (phosphoric acid) made by Septone Products in Brisbane.
It originally did drown quite a few insects and geckos so I started using a lid on the bucket when there wasn't a tank in the bucket. This also greatly reduced the water evaporation rate.
A yeast crust formed over summer on the bucket wall at the liquid surface and was easily scooped off.


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