My S2R 800

[Jez900ie]

Nice bike!

[Darkness]

Drain the old petrol and let the tank "breath" in a warm dry place (That now smells of petrol) and it should lose water out of the plastic, returning to a more normal shape.

There are recommendations that you use ethanol free petrol to avoid this, but that's less easy for you as you are in Devon.

The Norton Owners Club included the following comment on its website last year:

'Esso super unleaded petrol (Synergy Supreme+ Unleaded 97) is ethanol free (except in Devon, Cornwall, the Teesside area and Scotland) and we have no current intention to add ethanol to Synergy Supreme+ in other areas of the UK.

We would therefore advise anyone who has concerns about the presence of ethanol in petrol to use Synergy Supreme+ - providing they do not fill up in Devon or Cornwall, the Teesside area or Scotland.'

[Blah blah]

Originally Posted by Darkness

but that's less easy for you as you are in Devon.

Even less easy as it'd take over an hour just to get to Devon !!

Anyway, back to the bike... I went to drain the tank but it seems to have swelled up further and I can't even get the catch off now, bit peeved that this is the first time I've had this happen but it doesn't appear to an uncommon problem so I'll chalk it down to Ducati 'character'.

Living in Cornwall, damp is a problem so we ventilate and use dehumidifiers and given that I was running out out time I checked the drain hose to find it was kinked and several drips of water fell out. As the drain hose is connected to the tank vent (in a roundabout way) I have attached a small 69p dehumidifier to the hose, taped over the petrol cap and I'm going to see what happens. If nothing happens then it's cost less than a quid, but I just need it to do a bit so I can get the tank off to drain the fugger.

We'll see.

In happier news, new tyres fitted, Michelin Pilot Power 2ct, not the newest or probably the stickiest out there but I like how they feel (apart from when you've got 2 brand new ones on greasy roads )

[jonzi]

Originally Posted by Blah blah

... so I can get the tank off to drain the fugger...

A metre or two of hose pipe, stick it in the tank, ready with a container to catch the petrol, blow hard in to the hose pipe, then a quick suck, and then quickly put the blowly end in to the container.

Shouldn't drink any of the petrol that way.

I am sure BLUNT has a better way of doing it, but I haven't seen him for a while.

[Mr Gazza]

Blah Blah know all about siphoning Monster tanks and doesn't seem to miss an opportunity to post pictures of an example of that going on in his home County! Nuff said!

De-humidifier sounds like a neat idea, but taping up the cap sounds wrong. Surely it needs to breath for the de-humidifier to work?.. It certainly needs to breath to run the engine.

I stitch up little cotton bags full of Silica Gel and keep them in my tool box and anywhere else, where stuff might tend to go rusty.
Silica Gel attracts and absorbs moisture. Maybe a bag of that in the tank on a string, once you can get rid of the petrol.
Don't know if it would work, but it might help?

[Darren69]

Can you not undo the hinge bolts and slide the tank backwards, then unclip it at the front? That may or may not be the Blunt method.

[Nickj]

My tank is the same, shoddy materials well not made to cope with ethanol which is a surprise as they had it in Italy when they released the S2R ad all other models.
I have a 'spare' sitting in the man cave with a dehumidifier running before a repaint to match the original colour.
The silica gel would work just a bit slower, ig you cant find any bag up some quick set or ordinary portland cement which will do the same thing.

[Capo]

Silica gel is an absorbent and becomes saturated after a while and will require regeneration for dehydration to continue

[Mr Gazza]

Originally Posted by Nickj

bag up some quick set or ordinary portland cement which will do the same thing.

Originally Posted by Capo

Silica gel is an absorbent and becomes saturated after a while and will require regeneration for dehydration to continue

The cement will go hard and only work once. Make sure it hasn't taken a shape inside the tank, that will not come out of the filler neck!

Silica Gel is re-useable many times, by simply drying it out. Laying the bags on a radiator or in the Sun will do the trick. I don't recommend doing this in your food oven, as some have done!

I used to buy it from the Chemist years ago, but not sure if you can still do that. Not sure if it is a poison as such, but it would do you a whole lot of no good if you swallowed some!
I bet you could have some heading your way with just a few clicks on the internet these days.
I still save the little packets that sometimes come in packaging of moisture sensitive things. It's labelled "desiccant".
It's also used inside the hollow ally spacer bar round the edge of double glazed units. If there is a sealed unit maker near you, they might bung you a bag?

[Jez900ie]

Originally Posted by Mr Gazza

The cement will go hard and only work once. Make sure it hasn't taken a shape inside the tank, that will not come out of the filler neck!

Silica Gel is re-useable many times, by simply drying it out. Laying the bags on a radiator or in the Sun will do the trick. I don't recommend doing this in your food oven, as some have done!

I used to buy it from the Chemist years ago, but not sure if you can still do that. Not sure if it is a poison as such, but it would do you a whole lot of no good if you swallowed some!
I bet you could have some heading your way with just a few clicks on the internet these days.
I still save the little packets that sometimes come in packaging of moisture sensitive things. It's labelled "desiccant".
It's also used inside the hollow ally spacer bar round the edge of double glazed units. If there is a sealed unit maker near you, they might bung you a bag?

If cement powder works, surely rice would too?

[Mr Gazza]

Originally Posted by Jez900ie

surely rice would too?

They put that in Hondas.

[Jez900ie]

Originally Posted by Mr Gazza

They put that in Hondas.

And all salt pots in the tropics!

[Blah blah]

Heath Robinson is my friend again, but after about a week the tank has shrunk enough so that it almost fits again!

\

It consists of a small bucket with a tight lid and a hole cut in the bottom, the filler hose from an old petrol can (cut down, big end taped up to help with sealing and wedged into the tank filler hole, smaller end stuffed through the hole in the bottom of the bucket) and a 69p disposable dehumidifier in the bucket.

The thinking is that the dehumidifier removes any moisture from the air in the bucket, creating a drier area that the moist air in the tank then tries to balance by removing the moisture from the tank. Living so close to the sea means that the normal air is pretty damp all the time anyway, and mist and fog is quite common so just leaving it open might have made it worse!

[Mr Gazza]

Great work Blah Blah..

How does your little dehumidifier work?
I looked up cheap dehumidifiers, the majority seem to use Calcium Chloride. It is described as a desiccant and would appear to work in anhydrous form much like Silica Gel, to exploit it's hygroscopic nature.

These dehumidifiers seem to employ replaceable tablets (of Calcium Chloride), so it's not clear to me whether the tablets can be regenerated by drying as Silica Gel can.

Since your experiment seems to have been a success, ( and I like the science behind it) I would be looking to get a bigger version of the dehumidifier in there, laying out as much as £3.50 for one with replaceable tablets... The capacity of your brilliant cheapie must be limited to it's size. Although not a big problem if it can be dried out and re-used. Probably no more to buy at 69p than the tablets anyway?


Blue Peter badge for this one..

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calcium_chloride

[Nickj]

Originally Posted by Jez900ie

If cement powder works, surely rice would too?

Might well do but this kind of use would ruin the flavour so only use cheap easy cook rice. Rice absorbs about 3 times it weight in water, though as you aren't actually boiling it then it would be a little less I imagine.
Very dry silica gel absorbs about half and portland cement about a third of its weight in water.