Desiccant in gas tank feasible? for storage

My better half accepted a teaching contract in an isolated, fly in hole....r...community. (serious pesos in this contract!) We'll have to store our crap in one of those rental facilities. Every fall I take my carbs and tank off. I clean the carbs up and empty the tank. I then put some clean fresh oil in the tank, swoosh it around now and then and store it in a closet/utility room. Well that won't be happening this winter. The tank will be at the whims of temp/humidity, whatever. So, Does it sound feasible to stuff a whack of desiccant in the tank, you know, like the stuff in camera/binnocular cases, to remove moisture? I want to at least make some type of effort so that I don't come back to a ratty/rusted tank. It'll be in there close to a year.

Post edited by: gas, at: 2006/05/18 00:39

I think you're talking about silica gel.

Interesting idea. Somebody, somewhere has to have tried it, but I've never heard of it.

One thing that comes to mind is that while filling a tank silica gel would absorb moisture, there's still be free oxygen in the tank. And being subject to variable humidity/temperatures in your storage plan, any "fresh" moisture would enter by condensation through the metal. I'm sure that any reaction would be retarded, but to what degree is an experimental question.

Why not consider a marine-grade fuel stabilizer/preservative? If it keeps boat gas fresh for two years and tanks in one piece as advertised in that environment, yours should be much less of a problem....

www.marine-paint.com/merchant.mvc?Screen...ory_Code=TankSealers

...claims to chemically isolate oxygen and inhibit corrosion - and they even have a little Canadian flag to click on for *northern exposure*...

Stabilizer is not really a primary option as no combustable liquids can be stored on site. I'm hoping for alternatives, but if I have to, well, it would be awfully hard for them to check my bike with it being strategicaly inaccessable.:whistle:

gas wrote:

Stabilizer is not really a primary option as no combustable liquids can be stored on site. I'm hoping for alternatives, but if I have to, well, it would be awfully hard for them to check my bike with it being strategicaly inaccessable.:whistle:

Ah. That is a problem.

Wouldn't want to run the gauntlet and find out a year from now if the mini-storage people decided to make an example out of your bike by parking it out front and tossing a match to it in lieu of a lit sign...

Welllllll.....

Got any friends with warm, dry closets? Attics? Heated garages?

Might be able to finagle one of them into jamming a box containing one empty gas tank and a set of carbs in somewhere...

Silica gel can be purchased in bulk at arts & crafts stores. It was over a decade ago that I last bought some at one of those places, but I remember that the package was labeled "Flower Drying Art".

A year's a long time, but I'm thinking coat the tank in light oil, fill some long, thin cloth bags with the silica gel, put 'em in the tank & hope for the best... Maybe use women's stockings for the silica gel, 4 layers or so?

HTH,
-Kit

you could always oil it like normal and put it in a vaccuum bag and seal it up