HOW TO: Super-easy way to drain and clean your fuel tank with an air compressor!
 

Got water/crap in your tank? Can`t get it out? Not to worry, cause here is a neat little trick how to do it using only a compressor and some random hose bits!

This instruction is mainly meant for the f2, but will work at least partly with any motorbike!

Now, to the physics: the device you are about to build is called an ejector, you can go all fancy and build it from metal for continued use, but for one shot applications like tank cleaning this makeshift 2 minute against-the-knee version works just aswell.

http://kuvaton.com/k/Yevr.jpg

Here`s the main idea of the whole thing, when you blow air into a tube from somewhere along it`s side, a suction is created into the other end, and it`s this vacuum-effect we are about to utilize here.


First off, take a knife, go to the garden shed and steal about 30-40cm piece of the garden hose (don`t worry, she`ll never notice ;) ) Then go to the crafting drawer and nick a roll of tape (painters tape will do but some sort of duct-tape would be better) then you still need about a meter or two of rubber hose small ebough to fit snug into the vacuum inlet of the petcock.


Right, to the garage!


http://kuvaton.com/k/Yevq.jpg

Put the small hose something like 5-ish cm inside the end of the garden hose and tape it down, make sure you seal the end good. Then make an incision into the side of the tube, I used sidecutters.

http://kuvaton.com/k/YevE.jpg
Then take that longnose air pistol, put the tip about 5cm in from the hole pointing away from the little tube and tape it down good.

That`s pretty much it! Connect the other end of the small tube into the petcock vacuum valve of your detached tank and blast away, if the tape seals are tight enough fuel should now pour out of the valve. Make sure your compressor is in good health and use ear protection cause you`re going to be blowing air for a good while and the sound is surprisingly loud!


After a while you now have a drained tank, or at least an ALMOST drained tank with that stubborn #¤%& blob of water swimming around the remaining fuel. But not to worry, cause you already have a solution for this! Take a length of metal wire and shove it down the free end of the small hose to stiff it up and twist the end around the tube to hold it in place. Then go outside (really, do go outside) with the tank and the airgun-ejector-thingy, put the tank against something so that the remaining liquid gathers to the rear, blast air from the pistol and make sure nothing that can be ruined is in the air stream like clothes, cars etc, take the stiffed up tube, poke around the bottom of the tank and watch jets of fuel mist shoot out of the hose! Needless to say also make sure there is nothing that can lite the cloud, cause that would surely make things interesting :icon_flamethrow: If you have a powerful enough compressor it will be able to lift sand and other crap from the tank too, my Hyundai "smallblock V2" did.

After a while you should have a clean and empty tank! Just make sure when you put it back into it`s place to NOT KINK THE DRAIN LINES SO YOU WON`T HAVE TO DO IT AGAIN AFTER THE FIRST RAIN! :icon_doh: