Old glass fibre tanks

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ET43

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Non-VOC Member
With our UK fuel now getting more percentage of Ethanol in it, I am worried about it's effect on the lay up of the tank. I am aware of what resin I would use if I were making a tank today having made quite a few of them at WCS, but am asking if anyone can recommend a treatment for an old tank that will withstand the current fuel. My own tank was flow coated with a 50/50 mix of gel coat and lay up ( polyester ) resin and appears to be ok so far. All the problems that I encountered with old tanks leaking was due to then not being flow coated, and too thin a lay up. I manufactured all of Sammy Miller's tanks for five years and only had one returned via Sam due to some kind gent using pure Methanol in it, and blaming me for the smallpox look that it had developed. I have heard of Kreem, so can anyone advise me about it. If an answer is not forthcomming, I can see a large surge in the manufacture of alloy replacement tanks for all us special types.
Thanks for your help,
Phil ET43 Primmer
 
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Bracker1

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VOC Member
Contact the fellas at www.airtech-streamlining.com . They built my fiberglass tank for my Ducati race bike, and advised to coat before use with Kreem or equivelant sealant. I ended up using a product from POR, which worked great. No leaks or degradation. Don't know the protocol for a tank already contaminated with fuel. Contact them, they probably will have an answer. I think POR is a US company, and their sealant was a metallic silver color, and once set, dissolves in nothing. Mask well, and clean spills before setting occurs. Good Luck, Dan
 
vibrac

vibrac

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VOC Member
Found this in an FAQ corner of east coast (UK) fiberglass site may be of interest


Dear sirs, could you please be able to provide me with a good technical reason why general lay-up resin is not suitable for petrol tank manufacture.
General purpose grades have never been suitable for storage of petrol as they do not have sufficient resistance to oils, diesel , petrol and other similar materials. Before un leaded petrol became the norm you could store it in an iso resin like our Crystic 491PA - this was actually sold by a company called Petseal for sealing rusty motorbike petrol tanks. Un leaded fuel currently used contains methanol which has made it more aggressive towards GRP so we now only recommend highly crosslinked iso resins like our Crystic 199 - this also needs post curing to develop sufficient resistance.

(Post curing is heating the matting after laying up)

Tim (also shows petseal markup price-I am told new petseal uses the new resin)
 
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stumpy lord

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Non-VOC Member
HI,
both rogers and my fibre glass tanks have the same problem of the gell coat peeling off in the inside of the tanks, and have been wondering if their was a solution to the problem? Would KREEM be the answer? How should one remove the loose flacks of resin? Or would you coat over the top.
any advice or input would be gratefully receaved.
P.S.for KREEM is Ebayitems250402597745
cheers stumpy lord
 
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ET43

Well Known and Active Forum User
Non-VOC Member
Fibreglass tank sealers

The few posts on this matter brought little fresh news so I sat down and did a huge Google. It would appear that Kreem is starting to delaminate in the 'states and is likely to over here at the end of the year when we get more ethanol in the fuel, The only sealers that I have found today for fibreglass tanks are, Tank Cure and Gold Standard tank sealer, both available from UK suppliers. They are an epoxy resin and the blurb says it will stick to fibreglass tanks if they have been properly cleaned. Both products have a dedicated tank cleaner. What I cannot get my head around is that I thought that polyester and epoxy resins would not adhere to each other, but I guess as an old dog, I can be taught new tricks. If making a new tank today one is advised to use a resin called Crystic 199. Sadly it is only available in 295kg drums, cost £1500 a go! An additional bit of news came from a visitor to the Southampton section meeting this week who was a petro-chemical engineer who stated quite firmly that 95 RON fuel does not have ethanol in it, only brands like Shell V70 which is rated 98 RON, and other makes of the same RON, so if you have been giving your machine a treat with posh fuel, don't! However, the FBHVC web site says something slighty different, so please look at their piece on fuel. They also say that these ethanol enriched fuels are not good for various metals found in carbs, and are also likely to eat away rubber fuel lines. If any one knows different, please let us know.
Thanks,
Phil Primmer
 
vibrac

vibrac

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VOC Member
I just ran a search on east coast fibreglass supplies (which is where i picked the original thread from and where petseal get their product from before they 'market' it further) and
Crystic 199 is in all sizes down to 2.5kg at £17.50

sounds like the job is a good en to me:D
 
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timetraveller

Well Known and Active Forum User
VOC Member
Regarding Phil's worries about epoxy and polyester resins not sticking to each other; my understanding is as follows. If you have old polyester resin products, e.g. old petrol tanks, then there is no problem getting epoxy to stick to the old material provided that it is very clean and well scuffed. There lies the problem. How do you do that on the inner face of a fuel tank? It is a recognised repair method for old GRP boats where the material is accessible and can be cleaned easily. The problem arises if one tries to attach an epoxy layer to a relatively new polyester product. New in this case means up to a few weeks old. The problem is that the styrene is still slowly coming out of the new product and it is this release of styrene which causes the potential bond to fail. To give you an example know to me personally so that there is no intermediate exaggeration; I used to know some chaps who built 35 foot catamarans. Their factory was not large enough to make the whole of the deck moulding, 35' x 20', in one piece and so they made the deck in smaller parts and then used epoxy resin to 'glue' the parts together. All the case I have seen have failed across the joints. It makes problems with tanks seem quite trivial doesn't it? :):(:confused::eek:
 
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