Topic: Picking a Forum to Post In

[Kong]

Sometimes I get confused when posting to the other forums on this great website.  Its easy to forget where you are or to look at the posting date for the original subject, its easy to overlook comments that have already been made in multi-page discussions.  Its just plain embarrassing to have a post yanked from a Forum to be unceremoniously dumped elsewhere a few hours or days later.

This afternoon, if I can find someone to take the pictures, I'm going to document a very easy way to remove large dents from gas tanks.  I will be taking a couple of them out of a CX500 tank that I bought on E-Bay.  Three or four photographs and a paragraph or three of text should take care of it nicely.  However, the tank itself isn't specific to a bike that is the subject of these forums although it will end up on one (if not back on E-Bay), its not a project in the sense that the Project Bikes forum is about full bikes so it shouldn't go there.  Its not so much a Tip and Trick as it will be a How To for at least the first step of doing body work the right way (I plan to do a full article on this subject) in prep for a show quality paint job - which I also plan to document on these pages sometime next spring.  But for now all I'm going to do is remove a couple of dents (should take less than 1 minute). 

So, where does it go

[Brown Bomber]

If it is not bike specific I would put it here; http://forums.sohc4.net/index.php?board=59.0

P.S. Let me know when you do, I'd like to see your dent removal technique.

[MoMo]

Seems like a trick and tip to me, and I sure would like to see it,  Larry

[flybox1]

Seems like a trick and tip to me, and I sure would like to see it,  Larry

+1!

[Kong]

Thanks guys, Tips and Tricks it will be.  I got one of the three dents out (two out of four actually, but one of them wasn't captured in the first photos).  The other two dents weren't going to come out with this method anyway.  Problem is that for some reason I can't get the "After" pictures out of the camera.  The process is no great secret, I just blow them out with air through the petcock, I just thought I'd show how it's done and works.  Actually my son stopped by and he took the pictures.   He had never seen it done before and it really surprised him how quick and easy it was.

[Brown Bomber]

Herschel at Western Hills Honda told me not to use pressure to get dents out because it will spread the tank, he's made at least one of his guys buy a customers tank before. Also runs the risk of weakening seams.

[Gordon]

Herschel at Western Hills Honda told me not to use pressure to get dents out because it will spread the tank, he's made at least one of his guys buy a customers tank before. Also runs the risk of weakening seams.

+1

Using compressed air to pop out tank dents, and it's unwanted effects, has been discussed a few times here.  The idea of using a plywood form to keep the tank from spreading out has been suggested, but that doesn't address the issue with the seams. 

[Kong]

True that, I blew the bottom out of a tank for a Honda Rebel just this past summer.  You have to be very careful.  When it works it works, when it doesn't there is generally no turning back. 

[333]

"Experience is what you get when you don't get what you wanted".

[plug1]

True that, I blew the bottom out of a tank for a Honda Rebel just this past summer.  You have to be very careful.  When it works it works, when it doesn't there is generally no turning back. 

Um, if this happened, why would you want to share this failed technique with others?

[Kong]

Because if you pay attention to what you're doing it doesn't fail - and that is why you see all the warnings.  In truth you harm few and save many.  All I'm saying is e careful.  Its kind of like tossing rubber parts into some strong chemical to soften them - someone has to tell you not to leave them in there for 24 hours because it will destroy them, but if you do it in moderation it will work like a charm.  Well, this is the same thing.