How to fix a small hole in gas tank

I recently found a leak in the lower part of my tank on my 86 750. On to the internet I went searching for ways to fix it and after all my research I concluded that I was going to have to send my tank off and pay $300-$500 to have it repaired and a new liner put inside of it, or solder/braze/weld. I went to Home Depot and bought a small brazing kit for about $60-70 and got to work. It was a success the stick with the white coating did great, but before anyone else tries this at home I had the tank off the bike for about a week and had rinsed it out as not to go boom. I would not recommend doing this if you haven't used a torch kit before, get some scrap metal about the same tickness as your tank and drill holes in it to practice first don't want to ruin a tank or make the hole bigger.
Start with your heat on the filler rod and once it has started to melt then in small circlar motions move the heat around the outside of the hole, I made three passes like this widening the area of the patch but I ground down the filler between each pass as to make sure no cracks or pinholes where present and to make body work easeir once done.

Hope this can help someone else if you have any other questions pm me.

 

i take my old rusty tanks to the radiator shop--they clean out the rust with the same liquid used in their dip tank, then solder small copper strips to seal up any holes, then use Red-Cote to seal the inside. The old man used to do all that for $50, he used an old-timey soldering iron from back before electric irons...

 

Our old friend, J.B., the modern way to "stick a wad of gum on it" fix will last over 6 months if you shmeer it onto a cleanish, dry surface. Ten minutes work and no repainting. Sand it, and improvize a dab 'o paint. Cheap, quick and easy temporary fix, especially if you don't ride that bike much. Budget repair on a budget bike.

Too many other maintenance projects to do. :eek-new:nthego:eaceful:

Like yours, most tanks rust out along the lower edge, where water may be hiding inside. Best to clean tank and use one of the recommend sealers to cover up the future rust holes that might erupt at any time. :crushed:

 

All you need is a brazing tip with oxy/acetelene and coat hanger wire to do a bang up job of brazing almost anything steel.......if you have some practice. I've done that countless times repairing cracked tanks, exhaust system cracks, repairs, etc.

 

Sil Fos is a good weapon of choice.

 

Same deal on taking steel tanks to an old line radiator shop. Aside from the big box type mufflers shops unless ya know somebody, holes can be filled or patched using a wire welder.

Coat hangers should be checked with a magnet to see if they are steel. Some harleydoods tried using plastic coathangers for rod and it didn't work out well.

 

A guy I know used JB to patch a small hole on his tank. It worked fine, then a brick fell on the tank, denting it. He used JB to fill the dent, sanded it smooth, primed it up and repainted the tank. It looked really great. The problem was his magnetic tank bag would not stick on the JB because of the reverse polarity. It just kind of floated. It was a hit at bike nights but kind of useless otherwise. Food for thought.

 

Only a Harleydood would use a plastic coat hanger.......

 

Somebody told them the hangers were AMF plastic.