Tank repair - any ideas please?

Originally Posted by Albie

Mine was like that. Big Oz did his stuff. Minimal filler.

.....was thinking it may be an Oz job Albie, was yours that bad, looks like three different events

[Albie]

Originally Posted by Moco1961

.....was thinking it may be an Oz job Albie, was yours that bad, looks like three different events

It was bad and awkward for Big Oz.

Here is after pulled out I cannot find before

20106495_10213924646975436_7726268390771848243_n by Andy Patterson,

[Goofle]

Thank you Mike!

[Albie]

After

22491772_10214730113151587_2257962646093405622_n by Andy Patterson, on Flickr

22449649_10214730113031584_1722990159268272418_n by Andy Patterson, on Flickr


22491865_10214730112271565_8454829129364911477_n by Andy Patterson, on Flickr

22552541_10214730112991583_5738305384100639036_n by Andy Patterson, on Flickr

[Goofle]

That looks well Albie!

[Jez900ie]

Originally Posted by Goofle

That looks well Albie!

It does look great. Less filler is always good and as these tanks only hold an egg cup or two of petrol, pulling out dents is the best way to go imo.

[Darren69]

Was that a one careless owner bike or did it come like that from new because i did read somewhere that those early bikes they were filling sone of the damaged tanks even before they were on new bikes. But to what extent I dont know but it does look like repaired accident damage X2 to me because i cant imagine they would pass that one off as new even back when they were facing the money issues they had at the time. .

[the lodger]

Who is "big OZ " ? Looks like he does a good job.

[Albie]

I found the original pics. The tank cost me £37 I think. I think Big Oz did a good job personally.

[slob]

Originally Posted by the lodger

Who is "big OZ " ? Looks like he does a good job.

post #5 on this thread

[BigOz]

Albies tank was one of the first of the few times I've tried pulling dents.

My original approach was a slide hammer on pins I welded to the tank and it did didn't move the metal, possibly because I had no good way to hold the tank firmly enough.

I ended up TIG brazing a threaded rod to the tank where it needed pulling and bridging across the dents with a piece of steel angle with wooden blocks against the tank, the angle had a hole in it for the threaded rod and this allowed me to use a nut on the threaded rod to progressively pull the metal out towards where it should be.

The dents didn't "pop" back out as I hoped and had to be pulled back area by area gradually which on the front dent still left a bit of a crater field. Eventually I had to stop pulling as any where I pulled seemed to pull another area above where it should be and I don't have the skills to beat it back down to form with any accuracy so I thought leaving some room for filler was better than leaving material proud.

I'd like to have done better but I ran out of talent.

Potentially daft suggestion alert - could you not seal the tank and "pop" the dents out? I've done this with the expansion chamber on my 2T enduro with surprisingly good results. I have a kit that blanks both ends of the pipe which you then pump up to 40psi iirc and then heat the dents to cause them to slowly come out.

[350TSS]

Not so daft a suggestion, sealing the tank will be quite difficult particularly the filler cap. A friend of mine removed a dent from a wing, admittedly not a gouge, by pouring boiling water over it, although I suspect that a petrol tank (even a Ducati one) is thicker gauge than a Skoda wing.

Handy to know if my vRS ever needs any dents removing

Well, what a job !!! On behalf of Ian, enjoy the results, hard to believe its the same tank

IMG-20200309-WA0004 by Mike OConnor, on Flickr

IMG-20200309-WA0002 by Mike OConnor, on Flickr

IMG-20200309-WA0001 by Mike OConnor, on Flickr