Can you un dent a tank using compressed air?

[Fritz The Cat]

Asking for a friend who rides a Kawasaki. He went down and the tank hit a small tree stump. No penetration, just a nasty dent. He's thinking about fabricating a seal and hitting it with compressed air. I told him the seams might bust first but admittedly, I have no idea. has this been tried before? Did it work?

[Joe Hummer]

The under material on tanks is much thinner than the outer material.  He will pop that out of place before he pops out the dent.  (Trust me...personal experience talking here...)  Sorry, i don't have suggestions on how to fix it.  I just know what not to do. 

Joe

[Pete]

I do not know about ALL tanks.

But I have repaired a Valkyrie tank and it is not easy.

I ask one of the paintless dent removal guys to try first on a small dent. His attempt ended with a  remark that the metal was to strong and thick.

Even using standard auto body techniques, presents a challenge (stick welding and pulling) and resulted in breaking the pin welds while pulling.

Air pressure does not have a chance, unless it approaches Bomb pressures. I would not chance it.

[Tim R]

 I don't know if this will work for him and it requires some high end equipment, but I repaired my interstate tank that I put on my standard this way. I drill 2 or 3 holes in under side about 3/8 or 1/2 inch then used a rod with the end rounded and smoothed to work the dents out, I still had to use a hammer since the outer part of these tanks is very strong and once you push in a curve it does not like to go back out, but if you work it slow you can get the dent out almost completely then only need very little filler to prep for paint. I used a TIG welder to weld small circular patches over the holes I put in the underside of the tank. Make sure you thoroughly rinse out the tank and or purge it with Argon before you weld on it though has this can be very dangerous if you do not know what you are doing. This worked very well for me and I saved a bunch by purchasing a damaged tank off Ebay.

[Ricky-D]

Using air pressure in a gas tank will cause the tank to open up like a clam shell, totally ruining the ability of the tank to fit again on the bike.

***

[CISE]

Somewhere in one the posts here I saw Daniel use a method to pull out a dent on his valk.

It used a 2x4 affixed to teh tank by some hot glue if I remeber correctly.

[Kep]

There is A guy named Marty McFly that has a Delorean time machine that can take your friend back to right before that tree stump incident and it will never happen !

[Michvalk]

Gas tanks are very sturdy. I have an Interstate tank about the shape of a beach ball to prove it. Long story

[MarkT]

This was my IS tank after killing 2 deer in 2001.  After Honda couldn't get me a replacement in 3 months, I had a body shop repair it.  They charged me $500 including paint.  Looked brand new.  Don't know what methods they used but I had no problems installing it after so I suspect they didn't use air pressure.  Reading here, sounds like it's a more difficult process than I thought.

[JaysGone]

My bikes had 3 tanks since Ive owned it.
The tank on the bike had rust in it so I had it boiled out and creamed by a radiator shop.
The tank was repaired by the previous owner.
After it was stripped by boiling it out.
There were what looks like a very deep slash on one side that had been welded and you could see where rods were welded to the tank on the other side and the metal was pulled out.
Some sort of rubber like filler was used over the entire tank to smooth it and then it had been repainted.
Someone did alot of work to prep this tank and hide all its boo boos.
My having it boiled to remove rust left me with a totally stripped tank so I could se it was actually in pretty bad shape..
They took off the undercoating and left it down to the bare metal.
A local shop wanted alot of money just to make it presentable again.
I went with a yet another used tank.

So if you get another tank, just be careful of what you get.
Orignal was crappy, 2nd had a bung hole filled and rust, 3rd was the charm.
Clean and just a tiny dent from the handle bars being dropped on it when they were loosened up on one side.

[Dorkman]

Never tried it, but read of filling the tank with water then freezing.  Good theory.  The water expands, pops out the dent if you are lucky.  A crease is a different matter...won't work.  If it were my  tank I would go the the fix-a-dent guy.  They have the tools and work-arounds.