Another Tank Question

[Bryan]

After looking at the past posts I did not find an answer to my question, so here goes. I am wondering with the model 7 tanks, do these need sloshed or just leave them alone? I believe at one point the build of the tanks was changed so do the model 7 tanks need anything done to them?

[Paul Z]

My 7SS needed it's tanks sloshed. The mold release was clogging up the carbs, I had to have them both rebuilt, cost about $450. I would highly recommend it.

[Esser]

Hi Bryan, my kitis a couple years old and it still needed to be sloshed. The sloshing has nothing to do with the new ethanol resistant tanks which I think is what you are thinking of. The sloshing we do on our new tanks is to make sure all the mold release agent they use in the manufacturing proccess is removed so that it doesn't dislodge later and plug fuel lines. Two people would be nice to do this job but I managed with just me. I used chewing gum to help plug my holes in a pinch but if you have time, you can find something better

[kitfoxnick]

I think some are confusing sloshing with rinsing. The new style tanks don't need to be sloshed, but definitely need to be rinsed, to remove the mold release agents.

[Dick B in KY]

Service Bulletin #60 from Kitfox applies to this question. It gives all the particulars and instructions on how to do the rinse.

Dick B

[rosslr]

Nick is right. They need to be thoroughly rinsed - the manual suggests acetone I think. My experience was that I kept getting a lot of release agent after rinsing the tanks and pouring the rinse into the strainer. I think I posted a few photos on my Oz Build page of this stuff. After talking with JMc, i decided to use petrol to keep rinsing until i got minimal stuff in the strainer - the Acetone was too expensive to use in large quantities. For the last three rinses i used acetone until i got zero impurities. Just be patient - I get the impression that the tanks vary a fair bit in terms of how much release agent needs to be removed.

cheers

[kitfoxnick]

I have had good luck rinsing with ethanol fuel. If you let the ethanol laced fuel sit in them over night it does a good job of getting the mold release out. I rinse with the acetone first.

[cgruby]

I built a set of tanks for My Spezio Tu-Holer. I started with a styro foam block formed the the shape of the tank, and then covered it with three layers of cloth and epoxy resin. After it cured, I sawed it in two and washed out the styro foam with gasoline. I then sanded the interior of the tank halves and applied a couple of coats of resin. I then put the the two halves together and wrapped a couple of layers of cloth around the separation area, and consequently had no mold release problems to contend with. I venture to say Kit Fox could seal these tanks the same way. I flew Spezio for 20 years with never an issue.

Cheers,