Draining the tank

[BigNorm]

What is involved when having to drain the tank. My road glide had an easy quick release that only shed a few drops and made draining it for paint a moot point other than making it heavy. What's the best and safest way to remove the fuel from the tank?

 

[Claviger]

For paint, I'd suggest removing the whole fuel pump assembly, it's a bunch of 8mm nuts.

Will allow you to dump it easily, but will also allow a large vent hole/wash hole so you can easily access the internals.

 

[BigNorm]

So your saying remove the pump and dump it out the fill hole?

 

[Claviger]

No, once you pull the plate off the bottom of the tank the pump, filter, pressure reg all come out as a unit. If you can find my thread on putting in the 4 bar pressure reg it has pics of the assembly, or search the walbro 342 installation.

When that's off there's a large gaping hole, which you'd probably want anyway when being painted so you can get in behind the plate to paint.

 

[Jallen3.14]

Say... I had a small dent appear on my tank a while back. It's barely noticeable except from just the right angle, but it makes me want to throw up every time I see it.

I had a paintless dent guy look at it and he didn't see how he could get to it through the fuel filler. I didn't know about this business - is it possible that that might be an avenue to push that dent out?

 

[Claviger]

A defenite maybe. The tank is a very bizarre shape underneath and more than you would think is obscured even with the plate that holds the pump array in place removed.

 

[Navigator]

My son just dumped his tank after not riding his 2007 Classic for a couple of years. He dumped the tank from the fill spout into large gas can using a funnel to avoid spillage. And then, what Rob says, pull the fuel pump assembly. If you are not satisfied when the reserve light goes on, you can then bend the float arm a bit before reassembly.

Back when my son's 07 was mine, it used to go on reserve with about two gallons in the tank. Bending the arm a bit during a 10K service fixed dropped it down to just over a gallon.

 

[BigNorm]

Does it pour out the fuel hose when its detached?

 

[Tripps]

I don't think so, I think there are quick connect couplings, like on a hydraulic line.

 

[EasTexRIII]

Norm, do like Rob says. If you're going to paint the tank, take everything off of it. When I painted mine, I didn't even bother painting the underside but having it completely stripped insured that all of the fuel was out & it makes it easier to handle for all of the prep work that has to be done before painting. It is heavy enough stripped down, but leaving things on makes no sense, and change your fuel filter while you're at it