Tank Sealing Prep - a hard lesson learned!

[RING_DING]

Just thought I would share my little disaster with you all, so hopefully anyone tackling this won't make the mistake I made. So unbeknownst to me there were several pinholes in the top of the tank hiding underneath the paint so I did not spot them before I threw a pint of acetone in to the tank. After draining, I left the tank upside down in the sun to dry out and the acetone leaked out through the holes and stripped a large section of paint off. I read in another post (after the fact of course!) that condensation building up on the top surface inside the tank can cause these pin holes to form. I would love to get the tank repainted sometime (it wasn't in great shape to begin with), but I am not sure I will be able to match the color which I think was unique to the Japanese market models.

[two-stroke-brit]

thanks for posting that, i have two tanks to do and would have made the same mistake.

[oldjapanesebikes]

I would love to get the tank repainted sometime (it wasn't in great shape to begin with), but I am not sure I will be able to match the color which I think was unique to the Japanese market models.

That was a bit of bad luck for sure, but better you found out now rather than later. For the colour match, many quality automotive paint supply places have the scanners to check a sample and then formulate a match - they can then provide it to you in tins for you or your painter to spray, or in aerosol cans so you can spray bomb it your self. And as far as I've been able to determine, that colour (#738, Olive Green Metallic) was only used on the 1974 'B4' and 1975 'B5' Japanese local market GT750's. It also does not seem to have been used on other Suzuki models exported elsewhere either, although it may have been used on other local market models

[RING_DING]

Thanks for that info Ian. I might try contacting Ken at KNK Cycles to see if he could do it. Looks like he does a good job judging by the pics on his website.

[RING_DING]

Just finished the tank sealing with the Caswell compound yesterday. I found some helpful tips here:
http://www.ducati.ms/forums/77-sport-cl ... r-how.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
I did not wrap the tank in Clingwrap as they suggested, but I did put duct tape over the pinholes.
The really fun part was rolling the tank around slowly to spread the compound. I felt like I was doing Tai Chi in the driveway.....got some strange looks from the neighbors!
I kept a clock nearby to keep an eye on the time as it does harden fairly quickly after about 30 minutes or so.

[oldjapanesebikes]

It is an interesting process ! I wrote about my try at it here.

http://www.oldjapanesebikes.com/gt750/g ... #october_2" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

The main thing I noticed was how temperature sensitive it was - warmer was definitely better !