Is rust in gas tank that harmful???

[Spreeberg]

I can't seem to get my spree running . It will start up with a few sprays of carb cleaner , then it dies. I've cleaned the carb 3 times very well , I replaced battery and spark plug. Now I have drained my gas tank and found a bit of rust all throughout the bottom . I took some pics and was wondering If this would cause it to not start .

[patthesoundguy]

Don't use carb cleaner to start your spree, its for cleaning carbs not starting eningines, it will wash the lubrication off of the internal parts of the motor. If it won't start on fresh fuel, you have issues. That being said you did the right thing by draining the tank, all of that junk was just going to keep causing problems forever. That king of rust shouldn't hurt anything if you clean it out of there, looks like a bunch of water in the bottom . Did you pull the petcock off yet to clean the screen. If not do that first then flush the tank with the petcock off. I'd use some of that carb cleaner and spray it in there and scrub the tank with small brush on a rod to dislodge the crap then flush with a small amount of fresh fuel. Then clean all of the fuel lines and double check the carb again paying close attention to the small brass hole in the float bowl that feeds the pilot for starting and idle, they clog up easy and are often overlooked. Then set the idle air mixture and idle speed if you can get it to run.

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[Spreeberg]

K thanks , I'm gonna flush the tank and lines out and go from there. If that doesn't work then its on to the next part.

[Tate]

Yeah if you need to test for lack of fuel use starting fluid. Its like 2 dollars at any store.

Rust is really bad but I have seen way worse than that not cause huge issue.

My guess (assuming you haven't missed anything in your carb cleaning) is that fuel isn't making it to the carb.

When you pull the carb to clean it is the bowl full?

[bfowler]

Yeah if you need to test for lack of fuel use starting fluid. Its like 2 dollars at any store.

Rust is really bad but I have seen way worse than that not cause huge issue.

My guess (assuming you haven't missed anything in your carb cleaning) is that fuel isn't making it to the carb.

When you pull the carb to clean it is the bowl full?

NEVER use starter fluid in 2 strokes.

[patthesoundguy]

Yeah doonnnt use starting fluid in your 2stroke it washes all of the oil of the engine internals :'( . If you can't start it on fresh fuel its broke and needs fixing if you want to prime it use 2 stroke mix instead

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[refl3x]

I had a rusty gas tank issue with my honda reflex. basically with mine it would run but only in short increments then die out. I used a bunch of pennies and some POR15 marine clean and shook the crap out of the tank for a while. after cleaned rinsed and dried i installed a new fuel filter, cleaned the lines and the carb and haven't had the same issue yet (7000+ miles later)

in regards to the starter fluid issue i usually just take a straw get a few drops out of the gas tank and put them in the carb. that seems to work every time for me. dont know if it's bad for anything or not.

[breaze]

There are some good articles on cleaning your tank in the Wikispreedia - if its not too bad you may get by just cleaning the filter under the petcock and possibly adding an in-line filter. Honda sells one for the 84 NH125 Aero that works nicely.

I used the marbles and vinegar technique and it worked very well. Be careful with anything metallic (washers, nuts, etc.) - obviously, sparks are not your friend in there.