Oil Tank Repairs

[RichardL]

Grrrr,

Just about ready to ride and thought I'd fix a little leak near the feed nipple in my oil tank. Well, as you can imagine, there was also a series of leaks from old rust and around seams. My "process" (if you can call it that), was trying to braze them closed using my crappy oxy/mapp-gas rig. It seemed that for every hole I seemed to fix a new one appeared. So my question is, is brazing the wrong approach or am I just bad at it? Should I be using silver solder, instead? I suppose I could go browsing the web for answers, but hey, I've got the forum.

Richard L.

[KiwiGF]

if it helps i just used soft solder on seams that had come slightly apart due to rust or some other reason, and its not needed redoing since, over a year now.

Im not sure if the solder went into the seam or just sat on it, if yo see what I mean 

I used soft solder on a leaking petrol tank with same success.

[bsa-bill]

I had an issue with mine, rust coming through and leaving tracks on the paintwork plus the feed in tube is bent at an angle to the tank that it shouldn't be and leaks slightly but enough to mark the floor if left, fixed the rust issue with Por 15 tank sealer (that I had left over from the fuel tank), the leak is still there though so think it must be coming from the stub itself - another job for sometime

[BSA_54A10]

Plumbers solder will be fine.
Electricialns solder will be marginal.
You oil tank should not go over 100 deg C and plumbers is good for around 150.
Silver solder is fine but it is not really the best at filling up holes.

[duTch]

Hi Richard, saw this the other day but got side-tracked- you may already have the adjustable flame 'Mappgaz' do-dad....much more versatile than the original, though I haven't used mine for brazing, but it isn't actually the authentic Mappgaz one....Mappgaz ain't what it used to be either...!

  In the case it doesn't work so well, but am sure it has, l I've used 'Devcon Plastic steel' on (and it goes against my grain to do so) my Gutzzi rocker cover for emergency fix on a big hole after I went down the road, and also the fuel tank on it, and my Hilux the other week.
 The rocker cover was ten years ago, and seems to work ok- thanks for the reminder, totally forgot about it and have had it powder coated in the meantime.....so I guess it must be ok for heat

[RichardL]

Dutch (and the rest of youz guys),

Thanks for your comments.

After going at my finished oil tank (the red one) in a draconian fashion with my welding kit and the wire wheel on my bench grinder (in desperation of wanting to ride, now that the weather has changed), it suddenly occurred to me that I bought an A7 barn find last year with an oil tank on it. Gee, who knew? Turns out, that tank does not leak but needs a good power wash on the inside. Went to use my power washer only to discover that -20 deg. (F) over the winter was not good for the washer's outlet manifold. (Note to self: this year, drain all water out of the power washer before winter.)  Soooo, maybe one more weekend before fire-up.

Regarding the epoxy, I do think I will need to go that way on the leaky tank because one leak is under the T-bolt loop and would certainly resist even qualified attempts to solder or weld without removing the loop.

Richard L.

[duTch]

  I thought I added a photo of the stuff- will try again.
I also forgot that I had the same prob with my Beeza fuel tank as well as the others, and used it on that also... no probs so far- good luck