The tank I had on my 2000 WAS double walled. The dent places can get the dings out from the outside with pullers, adhesives, and suction cups.

jahlers wrote:
while were on the subject of dents...How about straightening out a dented stainless steel lower front fork cover? It's not a bad or severe dent, but it is out-of-round (no damage to the internal piston, etc; thankfully)

Stainless is extremely hard. Let me see if I have an extra one.

Sorry, no luck. They are both trashed from the PO's crash. One I'm running now has a slight dent.

If your fork cover has a "reachable" dent, you should be able to use a big socket on and extension as an internal dolly for he radius, lay over a couple of layers of painter's tape on the outside, and tap it out with a hammer. Stainless is generally hard, yes, but drawn tube shapes like the fork covers are usually annealed material that is only work hardened by the drawing process. It will require patience, and it is probably worth it to put a few layers of tape over the socket as well.

If it were a constant diameter, I would reccomend a muffler shop, and use an expansion mandrel to push it back out, if they have the older type that is expanded by hand. Would not try it with a hydraulic or pneumatic type mandrel.

They have a device referred to as a bullet mandrel for pullng through tubing to restore shape. That would be an exhaust place as well for the most easy to find.

Hope this helps.

Mudslide, thanks for checking on the stainless piece. I will give it a good try first and then get another if I need to.

jd750ace, thanks for all the information. The more I read your posts, it's apparent that you are just loaded with knowledge (loaded in a good way).
Once again, the RSC is definitely worth the browsing; so many helpful people here. Just yesterday, I was commenting to my wife that 'we have good friends'. At the time, I was just referring to our local friends, but obviously this group counts for good friends, even if we don't all meet. Thanks again to all.

My wife says I'm just full of ! You guys say it so much nicer!

Mine required both PDR (paintless dent removal) and some "bondo" to get it back in shape, but it got there. I was told that thanks to the pressure the metal is under to stay round, smoothing out the dents completely without filler was next to impossible. Knocking down out a high spot would cause another high spot to pop up somewhere else.

Go the PDR way first though, because for the cost its worth it to try. If it doesn't work, then you can resort to an all out rebuild.

If you require filler on your ride, try to stay away from polyester resin fillers. "bondo", and most auto part store variety fiberglass kits use polyester resins. I use thixotropic high temperature stable epoxy resins on my repairs. Hysol EA9396 and EA9394 are my favorites. They are quite expensive, but do not hold moisture, and have peel strength like you wouldn't believe. This guarantees that the filler will NEVER loosen, curl, or even sound like plastic when you "tap-test" it. If there are more affordable products of this nature, please chime in. I know a friend used to use a product called Marine tech, or something similar, that he used on his sail boat that was also impervious to mositure.

Additonaly, polyester resins are succeptable to softening by modern gasolines.

$0.02

jd750ace wrote:
If you require filler on your ride, try to stay away from polyester resin fillers. "bondo", and most auto part store variety fiberglass kits use polyester resins. I use thixotropic high temperature stable epoxy resins on my repairs. Hysol EA9396 and EA9394 are my favorites. They are quite expensive, but do not hold moisture, and have peel strength like you wouldn't believe. This guarantees that the filler will NEVER loosen, curl, or even sound like plastic when you "tap-test" it. If there are more affordable products of this nature, please chime in. I know a friend used to use a product called Marine tech, or something similar, that he used on his sail boat that was also impervious to mositure.

Additonaly, polyester resins are succeptable to softening by modern gasolines.

$0.02





MarineTex is good stuff. Cures fast and hard. I use it alot on bathtub/sink repairs before I refinish them and on my boats for gel coat dings and stress cracks. Good stuff!