Posts
4150
Joined
8/15/2006
Location
Erie, PA, USA
Edited Date/Time
1/27/2012 9:06am
I am getting new plastic for my 1978 YZ250. I want to clean the tank up to match everyhting else. It has some scratches and just that dirty, stained look to it. I was going to try sanding and buffing it out. Any tips?
fullfloater.com
I start by scraping the tank with a razor blade if it's heavily oxidized or has dark stains. I use blades with rounded corners. The rounded corners will help prevent the otherwise sharp corners of a standard blade from digging into the curves of the tank while scrapping.
Hold the blade as close to 90 degrees with the surface as possible and scrape in one direction. If you go back and forth the blade will sort of chatter putting waves into the surface.
Once you've removed enough material to get the color you're looking for you can start with emery cloth or steel wool. Just remember the tank is only so thick and don't get too carried away with scrapping. Wet sand with the emery cloth or steel wool getting progressively finer. I don't recommend the coarser grades of either because they will put deep scratches in the plastic that are too difficult to remove with the finer grades.
I then buff out the fine scratches with a 6" cloth wheel mounted to a variable speed drill. I use Turtle Wax rubbing compound (red color), then the same brand rubbing compound (white) and finish it off by polishing with Johnson's furniture wax. It puts a high gloss on the plastic and won't wash off the first time you clean the bike.
You may want to test a small area to get a feel for it.
Another option is to buy a tank from Clarke! They started producing a replacement for the 77-78 YZ's in 2008.
Before:
After:
Decals are available for about anything so that covers up a lot as well. The nice thing about those old YZ's is the decals from Vintage Iron are a whole large sheet so you can cut it to cover the entire side of your tank (as opposed to just having the few inch black stripe yamaha logo). After that the only fully visible plastic is a little on top.
The Shop
DeCal Works Huge Plastic Inventory of UFO and Polisport kits.
Luxon 4-Post Bar Mounts
$189.95 - $239.95
NOTE: Keep in mind if you go to coarse with the paper you will have a bitch of a time getting the scratch marks out.
I would start off with fine paper like 320 but if that doesn't work try 220. Someone metioned 150 but becareful because I did 120 on my tank and it left scratches that took alot of time to polish out.
Finish sanding with 600.
Apply Plastic Renew. Remember plastic renew comes with sand paper and wool. I remember Pipe not recommending Plastic Renew if you plan to race the bike. I rode my bike dozen times and the tank still looks new. I even spilled gas on the tank and it still looks fine.
Took me about 1.5 hours to refurbish my tank to look okay but mine tank is not going into a museum.
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