gas tank repair

PO had this covered witha bumper sticker. On normal body work one would use a "dent puller" to pull out the dent then use bady putty or "bondo" to smooth out the remaining area. With it being on the tank the only dent pullers I know of would leave a screw hole which is no good in gas tank.

How would you fix this?

 

The body industry has special "guns" that arc weld small copper "nails" to the area that needs repair. Then they clamp onto the "nails" with a slide puller and pull the dent out. A bit of grinding and then bondo and paint. Job done, no holes.

 

Something like this one:

http://tinyurl.com/2zntq6

 

wow that might be the mother of all dents, is the tunnel messed up at all
i'd like to know how that happened
not sure if any puller could do that any good, you could lead it in
or put a matching one on the other side

 

every thing else withthe tank seems fine .

What should I expect to pay to just have the dent "pulled" out and will it cause the crease to become weakened to a non repairable/non safe condition?

should I just leave it and look for a better tank on ebay, creiglist , ect.

 

i don't think it get weakened, but this might be a bad time of the year for bodyshops around here to mess with it ( is my escalade ready yet )
were not riding any time soon, shop around you don't need a cap or petcock so thats a plus
check out the bodyshops when the flowers bloom

 

It may be cheaper just to buy a new tank, less hassel too

 

I would probably look for a new tank, If you want to fix this one, you'll have to paint it anyhow why not just bondo it, It's pretty deep looking so just keep adding bondo in thin layers let dry, sand and add some more, repeat untill it's level. If you go to thick with the bono at once it'll take forever to dry and will most likely crack, if you do the thin layers sand between each layer to give it better bite, you should be fine.

 

That is the strangest dent I ever saw. Any idea how it happened?

 

I would bet the bike fell over against a flat edge. I'm thinking something like the edge of a deck, or some sort of railing.

Just my guess