Underside of fuel tank

If you look at the attached images, it looks like somebody did some sort of shoddy job refinishing the underside of the fuel tank. It's almost think like some sort of undercoating, not just rough paint overspray. You can see where it looks like they did some masking around the petcock and another spot where the rough stuff scrapes off pretty easy.

Did that rough undercoating like stuff come from the factory?

I was going to paint the underside just like the top side, unless they didn't come that way.

Suggestions?

 

It looks like it's had a re-spray but does it matter? You can't see it and as long as it's not bare metal it'll be fine.

 

factory did not paint underside of tanks

 

I think I'm going to go ahead and just have the whole thing bead blasted and refinish it all.

 

yup thats best to paint the whole tank

 

All masked up with several layers of duct tape and ready to head to the bead blasters!

After a little archaeology, it looks like the original color would have been black. Who knew?

 

Back from bead blasting.

Now we get to discover the sins of the past. Little bit of filler on the left side, quite a bit on the right side. Bottom looks nice. No pinholes or other surprises.

 

Got the basecoat/clearcoat sprayed today.

Looking pretty good I think.

I will give it a light sand, remove any imperfections, and then give it a flowcoat.

I've got new emblems on the way from XJ4Ever.

 

Looking good!

 

Nice work!