'13 HD model 9A

[Ian Biddle]

Thanks Dan, got the number, thanks for your help. Ian

[DanM]

In my last installment, I showed my tank apart. Over this weekend I made some progress on the inner section. In these photos you can see the inside after doing some rust removal with glass blasting- i use crushed glass, not beads. Then I switched to a soft wire wheel as Eric mentioned. In one close up you can see how the rust stays in the bottom of the deep pits- so out came my lil friend- muriatic acid. I thought I was clean enough- wire wheeling, acid, blasting, wire wheeling. Then I used Ruby flux and 40-60 solder to tin the entire inside and joining surfaces. If you don't get the rust out of the pit, you get a black spot where the solder will not adhere. On these I went back to the muriatic, a small wire wheel in the Dremel, and then even resorted to a tiny burr in the dremel in the pit- One pix shows how I left a paper towel soaking in the area. I took the approach of conservation- time did not mater- just did not want to cause more damage or metal loss, so I worked in smaller areas, acid and a brush until it was good. On my JD tank I mostly used a large soldering iron, for this stage now I tried a propame torch played lightly on the surface. I fluxed the entire surface, began to heat it and scratched the solder on to get an application. Then I began to reheat the areas and using a white tee shirt pad, wiped the molten solder over the surface as I heated ahead. Eventually you heat the entire area and add solder and wipe it until the entire inside it tinned. The tinning serves 2 purposes- 1) it will prepare for my application of the brass mesh patches over the holes and, 2) It provides another protective layer to prevent rusting in the future. Wherever the solder was on this tank, the metal was pristine. I believe the tanks are made from tinned steel, and over time the tin plate is lost allowing the steel to corrode.IMGP0007.jpgIMGP0008.jpgIMGP0010.jpgIMGP0019.jpgIMGP0017.jpg

[DanM]

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These 2 pix show the end result- in the over all view the entire inner area is tinned. In the little section, this is the area from the last post that showed the pits without solder flow, then you saw the muriatic soak on the paper towel. This shows the results of removing the rust pits and getting the solder to flow out. You can see in some of these pix the depth and extent of the rust. I think a few more decades hanging in a garage and the tanks would have been too far gone!

Ride 'Em, Don't Hide 'Em!

Dan