Vintage Dirt Bike Q & A

I have 2 elsinore tanks that I have removed dents and have ready to restore, I had to cut the tunnels out and remove the dents and weld the tunnels back in, this is very time consuming.

I have read about it and heard about people removing shallow knee dents with no creases by freezing there tanks full of water. I am in the process of this and am looking for some info. I have a TT500 tank full and in the freezer as we speak, My questions are : Do you freeze the tank and the water freezing expands thus pushing the dent out, or do you freeze the tank and then heat the area of the dent causing the water to expand in just that area thus pushing the dent out?

I am in a trial and error state right know so I will post the outcome

Any info would be greatly appreciated.

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C Bly

74 CR 250M
74 CRF 175
75 XR 75
77 ProFab Aberg HL500
97 Montesa Cota 315R
2003 CR500 AF
2004 CRF 450

It is the expansion of water went it freezes that will push the dent out. But I would be worried that the freezing is going to do some damage elsewhere....

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Michael Stiles
1979 Honda CR250R Elsinore | 2006 Husqvarna SM510R | 2007 Service Honda CR500R-AF

Ya my little brother has blown up a few cans of pop in the frezzer before be carfull.

Update: well if this was myth busters we could call this myth busted, I cant tell that the dents are any shallower than when I started. I even removed it from the freezer and put a heat gun to the dented area with no luck. I thought that maybe the water expnding as it heated up in the area of the dent would push the dent out. No luck. Might try it again after it thaws out.

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C Bly

74 CR 250M
74 CRF 175
75 XR 75
77 ProFab Aberg HL500
97 Montesa Cota 315R
2003 CR500 AF
2004 CRF 450

Water is one of the few things that DOESN'T expand when heated. Water expands when cooled, thus the freezing is how some people try to remove dents. However, from what I've read, this is very risky with aluminum tanks and the freezing water doesn't care what part of the tank it necessarily expands. So the heat gun thing won't work, unless maybe you heat it up to more than 212 degrees F.

What if you maybe just drop in a cherry bomb and and run like heck Good luck...Van

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1980 Honda CR125R

I and others have produced laughable results trying to pressurize tanks. They go from their saddle bag type configuration to a beach ball before any dents come out.

What has worked for me is a jig I made to work with a standard sliding weight dent puller. I just have a steel pad that I hot melt glue to the tank then attach the puller and bang away. Sometimes it takes several glue cycles before the dent gets smooth enough but it has always worked for me.

I've also heard those "Pops-a-dent" pullers you see advertised on TV and available at auto parts stores for ~$20 work but I haven't tried them myself.

Rick

Both the frozen water and air preasure methods will distort and ruin a tank before it will push out any dents!

There is only one way to restore a 1973-74 Honda 250 Elsinore tank with dents.

You must split the tank at the seems. Work the dents out with heat and hammer without stretching (very tricky) the alloy. It's an art that few can do. TheN reweld the tank back togather. Again, very few people can do this right.

Then rough sand, medium sand and then polish.

Mask and paint.

I have these tanks in stock ready to mount for $1,800.00

Regards,

Dan

D.T.R. DAN TROESKEN RACING/RESTORATIONS

Dan - sorry I am not trying to be smart but was that a typo - $1800.00!

regards

Rossco

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1974 Yamaha YZ360B
1977 Suzuki RM370B
1980 Honda CR250RA

NO typo. It typicaly takes 15-20 hours to restore these tanks correctly. As you can see from the chatter, no one really knows how to restore thes tanks correctly.

1973-74 Honda CR 250 Elsinores restored correctly are fast approching $10,000 in value with perfect tanks and pipes.
Theses are not tanks you can just bondo over and paint.

I have sold 3 of these tanks in the last 2 weeks with 2 more coming in from customers. You can see a correctly restored tank on e bay on a beautiful 1974 (330201624121) Honda CR 250 I have there.

And heck, it's only $1,600 if you send me your tank!

Cheers,

Dan

IMO the builders are pushing the prices up. Building nice bikes then hanging stupid prices on them and hoping to get a bite.. Kinda of like realtors did with real estate years ago, now look at it.

Builders don't push up prices, buyers do. Don't you wish you still had your 69 Comarro?

And a '69 442, '67 GTO, 65 Chevelle, '76 Laguna 400, and even my '71 Yamaha mini enduro, to be honest.

Didn't a NOS tank go for about $2,300 on f-bay a few months back??

Yes it did and I believe a nos pipe went for nearly the same price. These bikes are beautiful investments that you can have the pleasure of looking at and reliving the past with your friends over a few beers. I have a friend in Chicago that bases his company Christmas party around his vintage 125 collection. He now gets requests from non-employees to attend!