Here is the 77sporty tank I sent out to Rusteco for rust removal. Good news...they did a good job removing the rust. Bad news...pinholes. So now I have a rust free tank that I invested a lot of money in and I need to close the pinholes. I hate to coat the tank. I'm thinking just braze the holes shut. Any thoughts?

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A coating on the inside after brazing. The sealer will protect the raw, bare steel from more rusting. If there are hole to be brazed that needs to be done 1st.

 

I have no idea of how much you have already invested in this tank, but you can buy a brand new tank from J&P Cycles for $118.99.
If it were me I would buy the new tank and junk the old one without a second thought. The rust was removed but it will come back again unless you spend more money to coat it. That is also a mess to deal with.
You have leaking pinholes to repair before you do anything else. The brazing will do two things:
(1) Distort the metal from the heat.
(2) Create more rust in the future.
Your tank is toast so just get rid of it. Take it as a lesson learned about how not to deal with rust.........pg

 

I found several used tanks for that vintage sporty for sale on Ebay. Theyare bound to be better than what you got, and they can be hadfor a whole lot less cash than it will cost you to fix what you already have--if you fix it right.

J&P sells some nice reproduction tanks brand new.

I have found several places around the country that specialize in serious fuel tank repair. If its notcoming apart, they can fix it and guarantee it, but they aint cheap!

Piniongear is right. Why waste time and money on that tank when you have better options?

 

Those guys are right. Buy another tank. They are out there. If you shop around, you can even find NOS tanks. I bought these brand new in factory packaged NOS tanks a while back for 100 bucks each. One is a 77/78. The other is about an '80. It was still sealed on the cardboard.


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Well...I have to agree. If I had it to do over again, I would definitely do it differently. My preference would be to find a NOS tank in the same paint scheme...so that may take a long time. I'm considering coating the bottom of this tank to make it serviceable in theinterim. I was thinking of using Por-15.

Again, any comments/suggestions are appreciated.

 

Por-15?
Well, that is just pouring more money into that tank in my opinion. I really believe you should just go to J&P and see what they sell for $120 bucks. You will never be happy with the old tank, it is gonna rust again, and that Por-15 is going to cause you some serious hurt if it starts to disolve and get into your carb.
Just my 2 cents....again. pg

 

pg,
Sorry it took so long to say, but thanks for the 2 cents...again.

XXX,
You don't happen to have any NOS tanks laying around looking for a home do ya?

 

Sorry, no tanks laying around but you should take a look at what J&P has. If you can buy one from them for $120 and it is reasonable quality I think that will be the least expensive way to go. A gas cap is probably available at an added extra cost though.......pg

 

You could use the old method and use lead on the pinholes,get lead for free at tire shop used wheel weights,and to get rust out of tank use muratic acid full strength swish around in tank let stand for about five minutes and rust will be gone back done to bare metal,but if the metal is no good it will leave holes,almost forgot Dont forget to line inside of tank! Muratic acid can be had at home depot walmart as a pool chemical metal or concrete etching dont breath the acid !