I Got My Gas Tank Back From The Bodyshop
Well I am excited that I did get my GS’s gas tank back from the body shop. I am very pleased with the results as well. The tank was taken to Excel Auto Body in Janesville, WI. I will recommend them to anybody who needs some body work done.
Originally they quoted me $100 to extract the broken bolt, repair the rust & then spray the tank with primer. After sandblasting the tank, they actually found some holes from rust damage. The holes were not on the sides, but back where the tank & seat butt up to each other. To repair these holes, the bodyshop needed to weld the tank, then they applied some kind of a fiberglass something or another, maybe he said resin something… not sure, sorry. They also applied some filler in the deep pits from the rust damage on the side by the emblems, and then of course it was all sanded smooth & finally sprayed with 2 coats of primer.
Even after the additional work from finding the holes in the tank, they still held to my $100 quote & charged me exactly that. I was prepared for the final price to be higher because of the additional work. So of course I was pumped about that. At this point, they told me that I should wet-sand the tank with 600-800 grit sand paper & then it would be ready to be painted. But as I wrote before, I will likely just run the primer for the last couple of months of summer, then likely get the bike painted over the winter. Oh, and he did recommend again that I do get the inside of the tank re-coated with that rubber liner chemical… this is since they blasted some holes in the tank & welded them up. Again, I’m going to wait until winter to do that along with the painting.
One thing that I’ve noticed is that there is a little bit of “something” inside the tank, it can be seen from the filler hole. Not sure if it’s sanding dust, fiberglass “something” from the weld repair, or what… it looks similar to sand. So I’ll need get that out first things this weekend. I still need to give that some thought on how I’m going to do that, I have some old 2-stroke gas in the garage, maybe I’ll swish that around in the tank & rinse it out with that… without the fuel petcock on it, since that has a screen to filter.
Also, the filler hole has a touch bit of rust just above the line where the rubber liner starts inside of the tank… maybe I’ll sand that lightly, before I rinse the tank out. I don’t see it as a big deal, but I’d just feel better if I didn’t see the rust when I removed the filler cap.
But yes, in the end, I am very happy with my tank, it looks great now… although only in primer gray color. No rust, pitting & etc is very sweet! I have very little experience body work to really know, but to me, the $100 was a nice price to get the rust repaired correctly & that busted bolt finally extracted… as both things were kind of kicking my ass… I’d rather spin wrenches then do body work.
Oh, I am also excited to install my new OEM tank emblems that I bought from Suzuki last winter… as well as replace the tank filler cap “cover” piece as well. More fun things to do this weekend!
