Gas tank - bullit hole repair.

[AdminGuy]

Did I get your attention? Dramatic title eh!

My tanks are clean - no gas. Flush lots of water and dish soap many cycles for clean and dry before you do this for "no gasoline vapor" before you attempt this. Insert massive legal disclaimer "here".

I dropped one of my tanks accidently and put a nice dent in it. You can weld on the pull tabs to pull dents w/a slide hammer. Or... a quickie at home is to take a quarter inch steel rod and reform the end into a mushroom head.

Then bend the rod to make contact with dent inside tank. Mount rod in vice and whack lower portion with a large bar of steel or something. The recoil of the pick will hammer out dent or hole from the inside as you free hold the tank with one hand.

You can eyeball placement and then feel for it with tapping. This whole set-up is sort of a poor mans bullseye pick. I find it good because you can really pin point an awkward small area, custom bend rod to fit. Chuck it in the scrap heap when done, with no worries and very little out of pocket.

Dent came right up after a few minutes of whacking. No problem.

SO there! Put that in your pipe and smoke it.

Anyone else have some good tips, or something to add to this? Is this even worth sending it to Steve? It's kinda an old trick.

[AdminGuy]

pick in vice.

[AdminGuy]

initial dent. Whoops....

[c.o.]

Hey Paul!

I can't say that I can add anything, but thanks for the tip. I have a few dents to fix myself, although not self inflicted. I bet your first reaction to yours involved a few @#*! type words!

[AdminGuy]

One of those painful moments when you hear the crash and don't want to turn around to get a visual on the end result.

I used heavy guage wire instead of coat hanger wire to susspend tank. It just slowly gave way. Lesson learned. A dumb thing to do without twisting it closed.

In the big picture a small thing. Learnt something new as an end result. Onward and upward.

The mount flange or spigot for gas taps have been known to leak. Just another good reason to sweat tanks apart and re-tin. But honestly - alot of labor involved. Welded Iron Horse tanks are good value for money. Esp. when sitting in the middle of no where, tank leaking, paint ruined, with your buddies swearing at you for being so cheap. Something to seriously consider if your a rider.

[ps925]

has anyone tried something like that for exaust pipes? Or does anyone have any tricks for getting dents out of an exaust pipe.
Paul

[TOK]

I have a dent just next to my filler neck. I am trying to picture how to do this in my head?
Make a "J" and pull up?
Th tank will need rechroming and painting anyhow so that is not a big issue....

Any advice would be appreciated.

Thanks
Tim OK

Tank is off a 1950's BSA of that matters ...

[TOK]

DUH,
I just saw the photos..

looks good.
Thanks

TOK

[AdminGuy]

Try modern paintless auto dent puller shop first. Then try weld on rivet tab and puller.

[papereng]

Well, I'll try that one out on the tank I'm restoring now. I have been using a little different technique. I solder a nut onto the dent site, and either make a pulling bridge to ease out the dent with a bolt & nut, or screw in the 1LB slide hammer if that's more appropriate. Depends on the dent. Big smooth one - pull with a bridge, sharp hard one, pull with the slide hammer. Anyway, you can do this with out welding to the tank/ grinding, and the solder cleans up with very little effort. Only requires the propane torch, so not much heat distortion. Most dents take many small pulls to get out smoothly, so it takes some patience. The solder makes it easy to move the nut around from place to place.