Zundapp Bella petrol tank restored

Zundapp Bella rusty petrol tank

Lots of Bellas have been left lying around unloved. Damp get to them and they rust – it’s the same for lots of petrol tanks.

Modern petrols absorb water in the fuel, the knock on effect is tanks rust inside as well as outside. If a tank has been run dry or drained and if the cap isn’t sealed the clean un painted metal in the tank will rust.

Theres 2 types of rust, theres the slight surface rust that wipes off with your finger and then theres the type of rust that is pure rotten with flacking off bits of rust.

It’s just not a case of popping the sand blaster in the petrol cap hole and blasting away it won’t get to anything. We have a process where we soak the tank in a mild acid that only attacks rust. This can take a day or so, if the tank is rotten the acid will find all the holes and can scrap a tank. If its the type of rust that wipes off, then the acid is great – the rust disappears easy but leaves a sludge in the tank. So the tank needs a good water jetting out. Again there will still be rust inside – this is where our ultra sonic cleaner comes in, this works at all the hard to get places.

If some of the rust is stubborn and won’t come loose from this process then we can fill the tank with grinding media and rumble it so inside and out get cleaned up. And we can always bead blast the outside ready for painting, which we can also do.

Quite time consuming but repairs a decent tank you wouldn’t normally get to use.