Well I finally ordered up all of the parts to rebuild my carbs including new #120 main jets and a new petcock from Murph’s today, and I finished cleaning out the gas tank which looks great inside.
The tank didn’t have a lot of rust, but it had a lot of varnish inside. So removed the petcock and the fuel gauge sending unit and made up a couple of simple aluminum block off plates to seal up the openings, using the sending unit rubber seal along with a flat rubber seal I made for the petcock opening. I then bought a gallon of lacquer thinner from a local bulk supplier for about $4 and I poured a ½ gal of it in along with a bunch of steel BB’s and closed the gas cap and proceeded to shake the tank around for quite awhile, after which I drained the tank which removed quite a bit of the crap inside.
I then poured the rest of the lacquer thinner inside and repeated shaking the tank around for quite awhile, and then I drained the lacquer thinner out and used my long flexible magnet to reach in and remove all of the BB’s.
I then poured a 2 qt mixture of simple green and hot water inside the tank and swished it around well, then I removed the two block off plates and placed the tank on a large plastic pan I have and turned on the hose on and thoroughly flushed out the tank, and I rotated the tank around until I got all of the water drained out of it, and now it’s sitting outside in the sun with the cap opened up as well as the openings on the bottom of the tank, and it should dry out fairly quickly as were going to have a high of 85 today, and it’s already pretty warm outside.
Anyways the tank looks great inside, and soon as I get the new petcock it will be ready to go. I was going to buy a used petcock and a rebuild kit from Murph’s, but even with the cheapest petcocks I could find on eBay, after buying one and the rebuild kit I was within $13 of a brand new one from Murph’s, so I decided to just go with a brand new one.
After I get the carbs rebuilt and back on and install the gas tank, I’ll buy a new battery and get it fired up. If everything looks good with the engine which I’m sure it will be, I’m going to spring for a set of stick coils and a new windshield, and then I need to rebuilt the forks to fix a leaky seal as well as inspecting and greasing the rear suspension linkage, then I can ride it around for a little while for a more thorough evaluation, and if everything looks good I’ll put new tires on it, and go from there.