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How should I clean my fuel tank?

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amcherry

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Does anyone have any suggestions on cleaning a fuel tank on a 97 Sportster. Does the motor have to come out for the tank to come out? Please let me know any cleaners, methods, or tips you have for cleaning a fuel tank. There is a bunch of flaky brown stuff that's coming up and clogging filters.
 
Not for a boat but I did my jet ski yesterday.
You'll probably be able to get it out but drain the gas to make it lighter to move/tilt.
Water worked fine for me.
Just make sure it really dries before re installing.
 
When you get it out use a pressure washer and some simple green or purple power to clean it. Used them both to clean tanks. Just make sure it dries very well.
 
I needed to clean the crap out of the tank in my sportster too, the tank cannot be removed, engines in the way. So I bought an electric fuel pump an made a vacuum.. I took the fuel pick up out and cleaned the bottom of the tank.. Most of the crap in mine was in the sump
area where the pickup sits in the tank.. I attached the pickup hose to a steel rod with wire ties so I could direct the end of the hose.. Worked great and only took about 30 minutes..
 
Put an extra fuel filter in the system... and don't worry about it.

I've put an inline filter in and seemed to work great. After about an hour of riding is started bogging down. Brought it out the next morning and it was still running bad. Simply changing the filter fixed the problem, which lead me to the conclusion that it was simply clogging filters. Bought a gross of extra filters and took the family out later that day. Same problem happened (on the new filter) after about an hour or so. Changing the filter once again fixed the problem. Another hour run was great, but this time changing the filter did not solve the problem. Perhaps I was solving a secondary problem by removing the filters--not sure. The filters were the clear kind with a paper/type element in them. They never seemed (to me) to be excessively dirty, but changing them sure seemed to work--for a while. There is whole bunch of flaky brown stuff collecting in the factory filter and an almost clear sludge with some brown stuff in the inline filter. Dr. Honda, any thoughts on this matter would be greatly appreciated, as there may be something I'm just overlooking. Otherwise my next thought was to thoroughly clean out the fuel cell side of the system.
 
A gross of fuel filters = 144 filters.
I think it's time to clean the tank and maybe the lines between the tank and the in-line filter. Maybe even replacing the lines in same area, the brown sludge may be sticking in there....just a thought.
 
There is a screen on the bottom of the fuel pickup, the problem I had was the crap cloging the screen, once I sucked it out all was well.. If your tank is like mine the fuel pickup sits in a low spot in the tank. All the crap tends to collect at the lowest point where the pickup resides..
 
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