Re: Larry's 1951 Club Sedan Project

Posted by Larry51 On 2010/4/9 5:45:27

Back home after a few weeks away seeing our grand-daughter
in Melbourne, and taking a few extra days to stop at a few camping spots down the south coast . . . beautiful. Now it's great to be back and getting some more done on the '51.

I had a few dents in the tank, so thought I'd mention a means of petrol tank dent repair.

Having a few small dents in the petrol tank was more of a problem with appearance than performance, but I wanted to get rid of them anyway. Looked around for some ideas for removing them, and came across this particular method, which works for some mild dents, but is not much use with sharply creased dents, dents in thick metal, etc. You can buy a kit from 'Ding King' which works on the same principle, but I made do with a hot glue gun and some bits and pieces I had laying around.

There are a lot of people out there who are ready to spend large amounts of money on dent removal, but I'm not inclined to do that on a fuel tank where the dents are completely hidden from view.

Most methods utilize heat and pressure to pop a dent out of a tank, but the risks of either explosion or distorting your tank are high, as is the cost. We've all heard the stories about fuel tanks exploding - even when almost filled with water.

I used the following:

- hot glue gun
- coach bolt with some of the head ground away, and several large washers, 2 nuts
- cupped washer (- this looked like a shock absorber cup washer) - the larger the diameter the better
- piece of sturdy angle iron approx 1.5 x 1.5 x 18 inches
- butane gas torch (small one will do)
- 240 grit wet and dry for roughing and cleaning the area.

You can see from the pics how it is done. Here are the materials:

In this photo just to the right of the puller you can see where I have been able to pull out an earlier dent reasonably well and have set up the unit ready to remove another dent.
































































Best if the bolt cannot turn in the cup washer, so you can either weld the washer to the bolt or use the squared part of the upper shank in a squared hole in the washer to prevent turning when tightening. (I filed the round hole to square with a three-cornered file). Oiling the nut also helps prevent twisting, but be careful that no oil gets onto the surfaces where the glue will be. Sand the area to improve adhesion and clean thoroughly with thinners or metho.

A word of warning - keep the petrol cap / drain cock etc tightened and ensure that no petrol fumes are present when you have the torch alight! (A slightly safer method of sealing the tank is to stuff rag down the filler neck then tape plastic sheet over it. This can prevent the tank from exploding as the rag blows out and vents the tank, whereas a petrol cap doesn't give way). The procedure of heating the small area slightly to melt the glue is dangerous if there are any fumes around. Prevent fumes. If in doubt then give it a miss!

I melted plenty of glue into the cup washer, keeping it very hot, and quickly pre-heated the tank area also, then sat the cup with the liquefied glue onto the tank immediately. What I found is that you need to give the glue time to really harden, so allow around 30 minutes or longer. The bond gets stronger over time.

Here is the puller set up and ready to go:
























You can easily pull the metal too far so take care to not be tightening the nut too much.

Some dents near corners etc will come a little way but the glue bond will give way before you get the dent all the way out. More 'pulling power' can be gained by gluing a larger area.

This pic is showing the glue bond just starting to give way. The dent has been almost removed at this stage.