Cleaning Tanks

[Dick B in KY]

Has anyone who cleaned their tanks with acetone as per Service Bulletin #60 had any residual effects on the sight gauges tubing or any other problems afterward? Just getting ready to perform this operation on my SS and wanted to avoid any other problem. Also, with the wings installed, how much sloshing did you have to do (rocking the wings)?

Thanks,
Dick B

[desertfox1]

We cleaned my tanks a couple weeks ago with acetone/100ll.
4 times with a good shake each time. Have about 4 hours on
her now and pulled the air filters yesterday. Carbs are clean
as new, sight tubes are clear. I'm going to change the fuel
filter at 8 hours. So far, all good!

Phil

[cardinal flier]

I also sloshed my tanks 5 times with acetone/avgas mixture, followed with avgas sloshing. I've run my Rotax almost 1 hour on the ground, broken up into 4-5 sessions, and see NO evidence of BSS. My first flight is probably this Friday, and I will check the carbs often, looking for BSS residue. My wings are mounted, and I rocked the wings enough to get the wheels off the ground (Grove gear). So far, no discoloration to the sight gages.
Bruce

[Dick B in KY]

Thanks for the responses. Glad to see there are no after effects so far.

Dick B

[Dorsal]

Used straight acetone to slosh mine, 60 hours later all is good.

[cap01]

dorsal , since you had the problems , did you change the hoses and clean the header tank also ?

[Paul Z]

How long does it take? I get the dubious honor of doing mine as well!

[Dorsal]

Chuck,
Did not clean the header tank or lines to the carbs with acetone, did flush them out with fuel and change my filter, mostly to get bad fuel out.

Paul,
In my case a few hours (with help from Andrew) and we took the wings off to do it.

FWIW (opinion section) My experience with BSS is that once in solution it stays that way till the carbs where evaporation deposits it. My header tanks and fuel lines appeared clean as a whistle including examination of the fuel filter element.

[cap01]

rinsed a brand new tank this morning with the acetone per the service bulletin . this was the total of the three acetone rinises . i rinsied another 4 or 5 times with gas and am still getting some junk .

[tucsonchris]

Having been through this process after my plane was completed, I don't have the advantage of flipping my tanks in all directions and emptying them out thoroughly. My opinion from my own experience is that the flakes you are seeing are flakes of fully catalyzed resin which have come loose as the uncatalyzed resin (AKA brown sticky stuff) has dissolved through rinsing. I still have the flakes in my tanks with no hope ever getting them out, and I trust the finger strainers will keep them at bay, since the flakes tend to sink and the strainers are a bit off the floor of the tank. Something I will keep my eye on.

[cap01]

i still have another tank to do and its in the wing on the plane that i installed last year . so ill get to see how that goes .

[Dorsal]

That explains why I never saw these when I rinsed my tanks, always drained through the finger strainers. Given the way the baffles are set up inside the tanks I could imagine it would be quite difficult to get them all out. If I have these flakes in my tank I have seen no ill effects and the fuel is coming through clean.