Sometimes it takes a full tank of fuel to think clearly ?

#4DsLife...

This bike had an Ewarts dual push-pull petcock that combined the main and reserve valves into a single unit. It had been leaking badly when I last rode it 30 years ago, and I'm sure whatever fuel was...

I'm getting ready to paint the tank and fenders. To ramp up to this there is all the standard sheet metal prep work, but before that, I wanted to make sure the tank was in good enough shape to use....

Now it is just rust to deal with. There are a lot of ways to remove rust from steel. One way is acids. Strong ones like muriatic (hydrochloric), or weaker ones like phosphoric, acetic (vinegar), ci...

The only other oriface in the tank is for the fuel petcock. To eliminate as many external sources of leaks as possible, I decided not to use the petcock, but use a simple hose barb adaptor instead....

The leak was where the rear mounting tab was welded to the tank. It looked like an incompete weld, or a weld may have pulled loose or cracked. This would likely be a high stress area, and it's possi...

After I posted the above, I got a couple of messages that I had overlooked one potential source of leaks. The way I plugged the filler neck with an expanding stopper put the filler neck joint outside...

I painted a car once many years ago, so I knew some of the basics, but painting materials and techniques have come a long way since then. My experience was with one-part acrylic lacquer and a high pr...

The tank was a little different. It had a few little dents, probably mostly from road debris, but since there is no access to the inside, they had to be filled....

To hold up the tank and fenders, I adapted three cheap Harbor Freight adjustable roller stands by taking the rollers off, adding plywood cradles made for each item, and putting the stands on wheels....

Here is where one of my main concerns was. I had to mask for the black paint, but only had a few small pictures to go by.   Let me digress here for a minute. When I searched the Internet...

Initial polishing. The pieces will get another thorough polishing before installation....

Now that I have the tank painted and pin striped, it still won't be truly complete until the Triumph badges are mounted. The badges are chrome plated die cast pieces screwed to either side of th...

Mounting the tank! This week I got to a juncture I've been waiting a long time for: mouting the fuel tank. The tank has a massive amount of work in it from stripping, cleaning, repairing, pressure...