I had an issue with my bike a month or so ago. I was headed to a swap meet and she was not running right - if I tried to accelerate, she would just loose all power. I pulled over and saw the carb was overflowing. I made it back home and pulled the carb and all sorts of nastiness was in the bowl. I pulled the main jet and it had a big piece of crap in it.

So I drained the tank and pulled the stock petcock. What a frigging mess, here is a photo AFTER I cleaned it up. It was not this bad before I removed it but as you can tell - it was bad.



While cleaning the petcock, I realized there was a lot of tank liner that was flaking off as well as a bit of rust. I took the tanks to the car wash for a high pressure clean and then cleaned the tanks with Metal Rescue for the rust. After the tanks dried, I realized I had a big mess with the original Harley tank liner. I put a hand full of nuts into the tank, rotated and shook them for a long while and then removed the mess with a magnet. The last step was a rinse with 50:1 2 stroke gas. Most of the mess was removed. Now Pearl is running like a top.

 

I have a few older bikes and have alway,s run a little 2 stroke oil in the gas just for that reason. A few years back I decided to add some octane booster to one of my Road Kings and noticed while I was pouring it in the tank that it was causing the liner to lift and peel from the inside ..

 

That looked nasty. Someone awhile back had a post about some chemical the airline industry used that would remove the liner. If I can find it I'll repost for others

 

Never understood the need for tank liner.

 

I saw a similar post where the cleaner was used to remove varnish from a carb. I never heard of it before then, but when in the paint department of the local Home Depot it was on the shelf.


The name was an acronym similar to kme kle. I believe the first word was like Keitel. I will try to get back to HD and get the right name.

 

It is not a fun thing at all. I replaced the petcock with a Pingel. I have my bike back together and she is running well. I am planning to check the petcock screen and tank annually. What a pain, glad I love it.

 

Methyl Ethyl Ketone: MEK
Extremely VOC, skin invasive, powerful solvent. Use with extreme care. Similar to Acetone only more so.

 

To be clear, this was the stock OEM tank liner from Harley.