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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.

Have you tired using one of these to remove dents?

harborfreight.com/cpi/ctaf/Displayitem.taf?itemnumber=3223

They work great and all you really have to do it twist the stud to remove it from the metal when done leaving almost no cleanup to be done. The rear drivers side door "scallop" was pretty caved in on my Clipper from a pervious accident, and I pulled the entire dent out using one of these.

It works great anywhere that you don't have access to the backside of the panel. It only take about 1 second to weld the stud to the panel. Any longer and it will penetrate too deeply. Also because it concentrates the weld at the head of the stud, there is no worry of heat damage to the panel.

Thanks Kev, that unit (and no doubt others) would be brilliant to have in my toolkit!

Just recently used a fairly big version of a stud welder with multiple pin capacity (brand is 'EasyBeat') to pull out dents behind a few blind panels - and it worked great. The problem is that was a borrowed unit, and quite expensive (around $1500 Aus) so too pricey for me.

I have looked for an Oz handheld gun like the one you mentioned, and - unbelievable as it seems, there are none available here as far as I can tell! I even placed a call to a large welding supplies distributor -

http://www.nationalwelding.com.au/?gclid=CKyPmaj--qACFQsXewod-gaUvQ

to enquire and they haven't seen an Oz version. Would like to import the US one but the problem is 120VAC as opposed to 240 VAC we use.

I might yet import one and use it with a 240 to 120V transformer . . . .

Just one benefit of the method suggested for petrol tanks - possibly a stud welder would be more likely to ignite any vapour inside the tank, as it could possibly spark inside the tank. So I erred on cautious side because I think the 'glue stick' method is fairly safe providing fumes outside the tank are not present. You need only heat the washer / bolt assembly at a safe distance from the tank, if in doubt. My tank hasn't been used for around 40 years - definitely not even a whiff of petrol present!

The trick there is to fill the tank with water while you are welding the pins.

Most of Harbor's stuff is made in China, hence why the prices are so low. While they are not the same quality as the expensive tools, they get job done. For the casual use they work great.

All my high-use hand tools (screw drivers, wrenches ,etc) are craftsman, gear-wrence and some vintage Snap-on mixed in. But for those tools you only use once in a blue-moon, the Harbor Freight that is 1/2 mile from the house is a godsend, and the price is right.

Taking note of BigKev's suggestion regarding the Harbor Freight Stud Welder - I want one!

http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/ctaf/Displayitem.taf?itemnumber=3223

So after investigating for a few days to find whether any similar welder is available here in Oz - there is NO similar product (!amazing!).If you want to buy one in Australia it will be from the USA, off eBay.

I checked with my brother (who has been in the electronics game for years) and he happens to have a very large toroidal isolation transformer of 30KVA capacity. AOK to step down 240V to 110V and provide 30amps for the welder.

Next - emailed Harbor Freight for a quote on freight to Australia . . . . sadly the quote was around $150 US. I reckon that is too expensive for me at present, considering I don't need the welder at this time.

It has got me beat how you have to pay around the same amount (FedEx) for a 20lb package as for a 150lb package!! Ridiculous!

So buying my nice cheap stud welder will be put on hold . . .

Sadly it seems freight charges are a considerable barrier to importing the great stuff you want from the States.

Anyone coming over with a bit of spare room in their suitcase - let me know! (lol)

Rear Axle and Brake Recon

The new wheel cylinders were sourced from Kanter, you can see just how bad the old cylinders are in the following photos.







Note the yellowish gunk coming out of the brake wheel cylinder. This used to be brake fluid!




Thrown in is a pic of the diff, with new seals fitted and a couple of coats of POR15 added.




Showing the refurbished rear brake components ready to be fitted, and after completion. The backing plates (and drums - not shown here)were painted with heat resistant paint.







Here is a pic showing the offset of the brake anchor pin. Offset allows proper positioning of the brake shoes when a full brake adjustment is carried out, as outlined in section IV of the Packard Service Manual, under Major Brake Adjustment..




There was only minimal wear on the linings, so they just got a clean-up and a dose of heat-proof paint.




Back together . . .

An old motorcycle mechanic taught me how they removed dents from gas tanks in the old days.

He would sand off the paint and tin the area with solder then solder a roofing nail to the metal. By clamping the nail in a vice he could easily pull out the dent.

After melting the solder and removing the nail or nails, the metal was already tinned and ready to be smoothed over with lead body solder.

In case they go by a different name in Australia a roofing nail is a galvanized nail with a large head used to fasten asphalt shingles to a roof.

He learned to do this in P. A. McBride's motorcycle shop in Toronto in the early 20s. So this is definitely a vintage technique :)

Quote:Rusty,

May have a problem finding roofing nails in Australia for the application you describe as I have never seen asphalt shingles here. Roofing materials are variously cement or terracotta tiles, corrugated iron sheeting, colorbond sheeting and slate tiles, or before the dangers were known, corrugated asbestos sheeting. Although you never know, Lee(Larry51) is a very resourceful guy.

Quote:Rusty,

May have a problem finding roofing nails in Australia for the application you describe as I have never seen asphalt shingles here. Roofing materials are variously cement or terracotta tiles, corrugated iron sheeting, colorbond sheeting and slate tiles, or before the dangers were known, corrugated asbestos sheeting. Although you never know, Lee(Larry51) is a very resourceful guy.

Thanks Rusty for another method to try! I'll keep that one in mind.

I have a few soldering irons including the old triangular Plumber's irons that you hung on the kerosene blowlamp (which really held the heat well), and the kero blowlamp to go with them. Lamp still works fine - it must be 80 years old or more.

Nails - not a problem, have some 'clout head' ones with a large flat top on them that will do the trick I think. Will give it a try on dents I have in a '51 air cleaner. It's light-gauge metal so should work OK.

EDIT: (Very kind of you Mal!)