Some motherf$&*#! dented my gas tank, am I screwed?
 

My wife and I traveled to the beach on the bike and I parked in a half-empty parking lot away from most vehicles. I returned to find my once pristine gas tank with a nickel size dent, which appears to have been caused when a car door was opened against it. There was no car there when I came back. No note either.

I searched the site for a solution, and it appears that I may be screwed and need to by a whole new tank off e-bay. However, the dent is so small and no pain was chipped, I'm wondering if some one can pull it out. (I know about the other remedies and am not particularly inclined to to drop matches in the tank). Has anyone been successful in pulling a dent, and if so, what did it look like after the procedure. I'm not really interested in retail value since when I move up, I;m giving the bike to the wife. This is completely for aesthetic purposes.

This happened to me last year. The dent just appeared. I never figured out how it got there.

Anyhow, you don't need to replace the tank. My paint shop pulled it out with a slap hammer, filled it and painted it. Looks like new, except...

...when he welded the stud for the slap hammer, he burned through the tank and didn't notice it. A few months later, the damn tank started leaking from the patched area. No sweat, though. He repaired it, repainted, all at no charge to me. Good shop.

If you prefer a tank, you can find them on e-bay for not much money. About $250, last time I looked.

Sorry to hear about this. Wish people were more careful.

--Paul

best thing to do is just live with it. But if you are anal about such things (alot of us are), you can have the dent fixed and the tank repainted. Which would be alot cheaper than buying another tank.

I have a dent in my tank from the previous owner- no broken paint, bout an inch long. All the quotes I've gotten have been almost the price of a new tank so I'm just saying **** it for now.

mine has a few small ones, but I say phuq em, if my bike was perfect it would get totaled lol

I'm sorry to hear that. Those people...

I think you should try to restore the current tank. Should be cheaper.

I'm trowing a small additional question. I want to repaint my tank in either white or flat black colors. How much do you think it might cost?

wow the impact was that hard? just from a car door? dang...

flat black or matte black? theres a difference lol. Just for the tank, $150 - $300 depending how much prep work you do.

I made a tool to take a dent out of the tank on my F2. It was sort of shaped like a j with 90 degree bends and a half inch ball welded on the end. If you're careful you can make it look pretty good by using the ball to push it and smooth it out by rubbing it from the inside. You're tool might have to look a little differant than mine depending on where you need the leverage. my dent was on top hence the two 90 degree bends.

Here you go:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tjOjYvT0jEU

For the DIYer:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q0UAU...om=PL&index=16