By Joe Gresh
I’ve ridden my Yamaha RT1B 360 Enduro for thousands and thousands of miles. The old two-stroke has been across country more than once and I rode it on the Trans America Trail east to west from Kitty Hawk, North Carolina to Port Orford, Oregon. In all that time I never put a dent in the beast known as Godzilla.
It is a fairly easy job to load the light-ish Yamaha into a pickup truck…normally. This time was different. I lost my balance mid-ramp and the Yamaha started to topple over onto me. I was out of position to save the bike, my legs were getting tangled and in that split second I envisioned a broken arm or crushed ribcage. I let the bike go and jumped down to safety. The bike fell to the left; the gas tank smashed into the side of the truck bed and my somewhat pristine Godzilla had a huge dent.
You and I have both heard about the paintless dent repair kits. Amazon had this one for pretty cheap and I thought I’d give it a try.
The kit comes with everything you need, except alcohol (to clean the tank, not drink). After the tank got a good scrubbing with the hooch, I used the included hot glue gun to attach the little puller tabs in places I thought needed to be pulled. The dent was pretty deep and had a crease running diagonally across the tank. I didn’t hold out much hope.
The flimsy plastic puller seemed like it would break at any moment but the thing held up. It was strong enough to yank the pull-tabs.
The kit came with a slide hammer but that tool broke the tabs. I believe the shock load was more than the plastic could handle. You’ll need weld on tabs to use the slide hammer.
Usually the tab would pull off the tank and since the paint on Godzilla is 53 years old the glue removed a bit of paint each time. The kit came with a little spray bottle that you fill with alcohol; the alcohol loosens up the hot glue to allow reuse of the tabs. It took several re-positionings but I managed to get the majority of the dent pulled out.
The creases in the tank are still visible and the tank is far from straight but it’s at least 80% better than it was. From 10 feet away you may not notice the thing is dented. I worked on another egg-shaped dent on the top of the tank that was there when I bought the bike. The paint in this spot was in bad shape so it was hard to get anything to stick.
I ended up sanding the egg-dent to get something firm to attach the pull tab and gave the spot a light dusting of gloss black spray paint. After the paint dried I feathered it in with 600-grit. Again, I got the dent about 80% removed.
I think for minor dents without sharp creases and with fairly new paint stuck firmly to the metal the kit would actually work pretty well. The Z1 has a ding that’s a prime candidate for the dent puller except the dent is right over a stripe decal. I’m sure the tab will lift the decal.
I call the paintless dent removal process a good one. The kit I bought was bottom of the barrel cheap so possibly a better kit would produce better results. I’m happy enough with Godzilla’s tank. After all, it’s a dirt bike and will probably take a few more hits before I shuffle off.
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By golly you did a pretty good job, I think you can order a tank bra to cover up the dent on top, there’s also other options. You can custom cut a piece of vinyl and sew a border around it, use double stick tape on the bike and sew the soft part to the patch. It’s double stick Velcro You can imagine how it’s done. when I was about 14 years old, I cut up the street got a bike just like Godzilla. I talk to him into letting me ride it. Needless to say I didn’t want to get off of it carry on Mr.Gresh😉
Now you tell me! I got hit by a Deer at 10mph… now that is correct the Deer hit me and put two BIG dents in the driver’s side front fender! Lucky for me a car with a sign saying “dents fixed while you wait” appeared beside me at the bank a day or two later. Two guys’, Roma, (Look it up), said they could bull the dents of my car for $200 while I waited!
Then they offered to pull out one for FREE while I watched! I said go ahead! My 2007 Mercury Gran Marquis then looked about like new, well a 190,000-mile new car. So. I said, “Do it!” They jumped in and pulled out the Big Dent and now my car looks, well like a Mercury Gan Marquis with 190,000 or so. It does pass the 50/50 test,50 miles per hour and 50 feet away it looks fine! If only you had this article before this happened, I could have saved all that BIG money!
Wow! If you got that cheap ass kit to actually work you must be a semi-genius. Nice job!
You boldly go where many of us fear to tread. Good job on the dents and now we know the method does work, to one degree or another, for DIYers.
Larry,
I give it an enthusiastic “sort of works”.
I love it when you get inexpensive tools and then make things better!
You give us confidence to try these same adventures on our own.
Harbor Freight should give you a store so you try everything on our behalf!
Idk.
Cars are flimsier metal these days .i had good luck pulling a dent on a csr but it was plastic number cover and using the suction pullers and a hair dryer worked fine .
Old gas tanks are tuff steel. I think they yiu used to pop them out with compressed air?
Maybe if combined with compressed air this thing would work better.
That’s good stuff to know. I think you did a great job. The old Yami is back to being as pristine as it was. (Insert thumb-up emoji here.)
Be real careful using compressed air in bike gas tanks. Ussually it will cause the tank to spread out the “tunnel” and make it fatter and deformed. Use very little air pressure. Or so I have been told.
Joe,
That’s cool you got it repaired, and even cooler that you still have your old Yamaha 360 enduro. My old enduro as a 1976 DT 400, you know the one with the yellow and black tank and black head with filed off cooling fins. Bought it new and put many thousands of miles on it before letting it go. I wish I still had that old bike.
Filed off cooling fins? Wtf?