A forum for owners of Yamaha TTR250 trail and enduro bikes!

TTRfan · Super Guru

Repairing rust holes in a metal tank

Brighton Brad · Veteran Member

Good job chaps, I’ve a raid tank with the same holes in, I might give this a go. I did have some success with plastic padding leak fix though only managed to sort out one side of the tank, so this method looks more likely to sort it 👍

pug · Guru

Top Job Brian never entered my head to try solder I brazed a pin holed tank last year as luck would have it the school still has oxy/acetylene gear I cant stretch to them bottles as well as the mig and tig it was a bastard to get it to flow out as it wanted so much heat and on a thin tank its not good. most of what we use to braze up use to be 2 smoke exhaust pipe headers that always ended up rusting like cullender back in the 80s and never had much of a problem even with all the contaminates it went well most times

TTRfan · Super Guru

Thank you Martyn - compliment appreciated - especially from a man such as yourself who is so handy with the engineering and workshop tools!

This is an example of the wooden paddle I mentioned - see here. The idea being that you wipe it in tallow so it gets a very thin coat and floats over the solder whilst tidying up the finish. I have read elsewhere that you can also smooth the molten solder with a damp cloth.

Frost UK seem top be the UK stockists for Eastwood kit (they do some excellent video tutorials) and sell a soldering kit here.

I guess that, if you only have one tank to repair, it is a fine financial balance between buying the kit and doing the job yourself or doing the preparation and taking the tank to a professional. However, finding a soldering expert and, taking into consideration the time and effort in getting the job done by an outsider, might make the investment in the kit better value for money. And, after doing the job, you still have the kit and remaining materials to store away or sell on (or start a little business repairing other people's tanks if you find you are good at it!).

Brian

pug · Guru

Putting yourself up for a job hear Brian one or two metal TTr tanks needing attention sat in peoples sheds and garages needing repair the one I did was a Yamaha 350 lc they suffered back in there day with rusty tanks so you can imagen what it was like after 35 years and it was the best one he could find after paying £300 for a copy one from India that looks kind of right but isn't then paying £200 for the 2nd hand holed one described as little rusty but holding fuel. The tank that was on the bike you could put you hand in the holes on the bottom I had a horrible feeling he was gong to ask if I could do anything with that one and my metal bashing and tig skills would not have been up to that.

Martyn