Old gas (and an even older gas tank)

[triangleforge]

I'm the current caretaker of a recently deceased friend's mid-1970s, complete but non-running Norton Commando 850 (left side gear change, so 75-77) while his estate goes through probate & his widow puts it up for sale. Since the likely buyer (an old friend of theirs) probably won't be moving on it until the spring, I'm taking advantage of the situation to see if I can hear it run (because I want to, and because it'd boost the bike's value for her)... without spending a lot of money or (more importantly) doing any harm to the bike or its value.

Step one is dealing with the gallon of 15+ year old gas that was in the tank. I've removed the tank and drained most of the old, green gas and some huge rust flakes, and am cleaning out the thoroughly clogged petcocks. Two questions emerge:

1) What do I do with the old gas? It's pretty toxic stuff and there's a whole gallon of it... I'll contact my Municipal waste disposal, but I'm not hopeful that they've got much of a household hazardous waste program, so I'm turning to the DMF to see if there are any acceptable alternatives of which I'm not aware.

2) Are there preferred products for sealing the inside of the tank? I know the basic procedure and used a POR product on a Land Cruiser tank long, long ago, but have no recollection of other options and their cost & effectiveness.  Does a refinished tank (as opposed to one that's flakey & rusty inside) hurt the vintage value? The tank has been re-sprayed at least once; it's not a perfect paintjob, but it looks nice enough on all the visible surfaces. The underside near the petcocks has bubbling paint, but I'm going to leave that to whomever buys the bike.

And after that... a look at the Mikuni carburetor, which at some point in the bike's life replaced the stock Amal.

[ducatiz]

You can mix it with waste oil and turn it in for recycling.  A lot of that waste oil is cleaned and used for burning.

Do you have a stump you need to get rid of?  Old gas burns just fine.

For sealing a METAL tank, I would check out the Bill Hirsch product.  They make a motorcycle-sized kit which will handle 2 tanks.  It thins with MEK and has everything you need.  It will seal even when you have pinhole rust.  I like it because it's white and handles ethanol gas.

The kit comes with a de-rust, an etcher and the coating.  Get a cheap hair dryer with a "no heat" setting and a small enough nose to put into the filler.  Dry well between steps.  I have a tank that was coated in it that's going on 8 years of use now.

Caswell's is also good and works with the plastic tanks too, I've just never used it for a metal tank.

[DucNaked]

You can mix it with waste oil and turn it in for recycling.  A lot of that waste oil is cleaned and used for burning.

My transfer station checks waste oil for gas and will not except it if gas is detected.

[ducatiz]

My transfer station checks waste oil for gas and will not except it if gas is detected.

ah.  advanced auto doesn't check...

[ducpainter]

Hirsch makes good products, but I'm a POR fan because it's worked well for me. I admit I've never used the Hirsch sealer.

The POR is a single serving ready to use package that has everything and I have no trouble seeing where the silver coating has been.

It has a plenty long working time too as opposed to the caswell which kicks too quickly IMO. It also is ready to reinstall after 96 hours.

If there is a downside to the POR product, it's the strength of the acid. It could work quicker on heavy rust.

If a product requires mixing/thinning be sure to follow ratios closely. Those guys are the chemists and there's no sense trying to second guess them.

[victor441]

check out http://www.accessnorton.com/ which is a Norton Commando forum, lots of good info and helpful people also have seen threads on tank restoration....have a Commando myself and it is a great resource

[Howie]

Properly disposal of gasoline is a local issue.  Normally I would suggest adding it to the fuel tank of your car and running it through since you are diluting it.  15 year old and full of rust?  Got a neighbor with a car you hate?

You might ask some of the local auto repair shops how they dispose of bad gas.  T think it would work if the stale gas is added to a large enough quantity of  used oil since some gas will be in used oil anyway.

[triangleforge]

Thanks for the suggestions! I guess yesterday was my day to deal with gasoline disposal - we had a powerful freezing rain storm blow in and (because the Norton and several other bikes are cheek to jowl in our tiny garage) the ST2 was outside under a cover, up on the centerstand. High winds and saturated ground tipped it over to the right - had it gone left, the extended sidestand would have settled gently onto the paving stone set in the yard just for that purpose.   

When Ann-Marie found it lying there, we righted it and discovered that it had leaked a gallon or more of gas through the vent hole --yes, I had just filled the tank. So now I've got a plastic tub filled with couple hundred pounds of gasoline & rainwater saturated dirt in addition to my gallon jug of ancient gas from the Norton. Bah.

We did manage to shuffle the bikes around so that all are now under a roof, but there's no longer space between to actually work on them...

[triangleforge]

It's alive!!! One of Tom's friends (Jim Gray, the certified/certifiable Norton nut who ran the video camera below) and I spent yesterday afternoon going through the orange Norton with hopes of hearing it run for the first time since the early 1990s.

We removed the Norton's dead battery (which showed a whopping 1.1 volts on the meter) pulled the battery out of my truck for power, since we knew the Commando's starting system is pretty challenged even under ideal conditions, and we correctly guessed there was going to be a whole lot of cranking in our future.

Because the bike's gas tank is still full of rust, we rigged up a length of fuel hose & a two ounce funnel to supply gas to the carb.

Through the afternoon we got several hopeful pops and false starts, but nothing we could really call running. Finally, on our official "one last try," with Tom's widow Johanna looking on for good luck, I thumbed the feeble "starter," gave it a good kick - the motor caught, rumbled to life, blew a dozen or more whole peanuts that some hopeful squirrel had stashed in the left exhaust, and quickly sucked through the ounce or so of gas it had available. It was beautiful.

It's ALIVE!!

[ducpainter]

 

[Howie]

Damn squirrels

Good work, Brad

[triangleforge]

Damn squirrels