Bonneville America Forums Forums Technical Forums General Tech Gasoline and gum wrappers

Just when you thought you heard it all someone comes along with a new one.

I got back from a ride this afternoon and thought I'd fuel up before heading home so I had a full tank for the work week. I keep my wallet in my left front pocket and when I pulled up to the pump, removed my gas cap, grabbed my wallet from my pocket and opened it, a gum wrapper I had stuffed in my pocket earlier fell out and would you believe, scurried down into my tank. I decided not to top up and rode home instead.

Perplexed and wondering what sinks, what floats, I placed another gum wrapper in a jar of gasoline only to discover that it sinks to the bottom. So I grabbed a siphon hose and siphoned my tank, twice, hoping I would suck the offending matter up through the hose. No such luck. Then I pondered worse case scenarios by just leaving it and came up with a possible plugged petcock. If so, I could just switch to reserve, then I thought what if it plugged the reserve feed? Hmmmm, the wrapper sinks to the bottom, the petcock is gravity fed, not a lot of suction and the lines are higher than the very bottom of the tank so I hope not much chance of that happening.

I still have the other wrapper in a small jar of gasoline to see if it does break down, gets slimy or gummy overnight.

My only other option I can think of is to remove the tank, drain it and flush it out with water. Is this advisable and how does one dry a tank after rinsing it with water?

I would take the tank off, flip it up side down, making sure the filler hole is on the very bottom. Let it sit for a little while(or until you figure the wrapper has settled down). Hold over a bucket and open the cap. Good luck!!

If you don't see the wrapper after that then maybe try compressed air in the hole where the petcock mounts instead of water. I think if you did that enough times and check the fill hole each time you might eventually see it.

I thought about turning the tank upside down but the fill hole has a flange around it, making the top of the tank lower than the filler. I'll try it and hope for the best. Otherwise, if I remove the petcock from the tank is that opening big enough to fetch it?

drain the gas, get a shopvac and tape a piece of garden hose into the end of the vac hose and stcik it down into the tank and move it around, it should find them pieces of paper and viola, problem solved.

DID THEY REALLY????
That's awesome. Glad I didn't know that when I was younger.

Yeah that shop vac could be a bad thing.

I would think that if you drained the tank from the petcock tube with a siphon so theres a pull or suction, it would pull the wrapper to the petcock and stick to the filter mechanism. Then you would just need to take the petcock off and scrape the wrapper away. If anything you want it stuck on the petcock and I'm thinking its gotta go to the source.

You could drain the tank, take a long dental mirror to look into the tank, drop the mirror in, get a long magnet tool to grab the mirror, drop the magnet in the tank, then get a coat hanger....aw forget it.

Thats paper and alum foil,the paper will disolve and the foild trun into small little carb clogging flakes.There,,,,,,,,,,now you have a pep talk to make you think harder!

Thanks for the advice, although leery about the shop vac I'll try it, what could possibly go wrong?
Fortunately it is just a paper wrapper, no foil.

fumes in a shop vac really will explode from the sparks from the electric motor.

Well, I got send this one in to the mythbusters. I completely believe that the vac can explode but I'm still sending it in. They would probably like this one too as it revolves around explosions.

2¢
Pulling the petcock is the first thing to do. Drain tank. Remove tank. Remove petcock. The wrapper might already be sucked up to the petcock screens. If not, then hold finger on petcock hole. Add fuel, swish fuel, drain. Repeat till foreign object(s) flows out. Trying to fish the wrapper out the top can cause fuel spillage on your tank paint as would trying to flush the wrapper out the fuel fill hole.

Really not getting anywhere and want a decent flush? Fill tank with water while you have the petcock hole plugged. Hold tank up, unplug petcock hole, gyrate tank so water swirls and flows out the petcock hole. Capture drained water in vessel so you can see what comes out. Use hair dryer to dry out tank.

Since you are kinda in the area when you pull the tank, clean the hidden filter. And drain the carb bowls too.

If you are going to put water in the tank, follow it with an acetone wash. Water is soluble in acetone and should remove any residual water with a couple of washes. You will only need a cup or 2 for each wash. Residual acetone can be easily evaporated. After washing (adding, swirling and removing) with the acetone either leave it sit for a day with the cap open or preferably blow air through it.

I got it, thanks to all for the advice. I was kidding about using shop-vac, I ain't that crazy. I pulled the petcock, flushed about a half gallon of fuel through the tank and out the hole into a bucket and after the second attempt my lovely assistant snatched the wrapper with a pair of tweezers and pulled it from the tank.

I advise leaving the gas cap on until the wallet has been cleared of debris.

Ya got it!! Right on... crisis over! Thank gawd you got that resolved. It was stressing ME out!!!!