Tale Of The Tank

[papa al]

As y’all know papa bought a Lifan200 Cross about a year ago.

I changed the black colour to a black/red plastic, yellow tank scheme.

I really didn’t like the way those fake plastic air-scoops, attached to the tank looked.

Fancied a yellow bare tank look.

However there were 5 steel mounting clips per side welded to the tank.

papa no hab small grinder to remove these.

So went to MaiTai to get a quote on a professional job.

Explained to the owner that I wanted the tabs removed, filled & painted.

Yellow.

B4000 seemed a bit steep for this Chinese POS, but

pulled & MT-ed the tank.

Took it over the next day, Friday, accompanied by my cousin.

Reiterated my needs, and Rudy said Tuesday or Wednesday for pick-up.

Wed was informed that tank not ready, Rudy in BKK for weekend.

Monday Rudy there, tank ‘finished’.

Really nice paint job but had failed to remove the steel tabs and fill.

Rudy decided to pull the ‘you never told me to remove the tabs’ bullshit and wanted me to pay anyway.

Cousin was with again as witness and

Rudy’s wife seemed to realize the shop was in error.

Edited March 2, 2016 by metisdead
Small font reset to normal.

[Rhys]

Papa no go back, no more..

[OmegaRacer]

And then??

[rodcourt49]

And then??

..you will have to wait until next year.

[TPI]

Papa no go back, no more..

Yes yes yes yes I completely understand...tabs off, fill sand and paint. yes yes yes.......what? What? Oh I'm sure he didn't want the tags off as we don't know how..............what? Paint, I'm sure he said paint? Yes yes yes ......paint!

DELETED

Edited March 4, 2016 by seedy
disrespectful

[papa al]

papa was gonna kick his ass but

remembering Buddha’s teaching,

instead told him to strip the paint off.

I picked it up the next day.

10 days wasted in the shop, whaaaa.

Bought a 100mm angle-head grinder.

When I dinged the tank i realized that it was a bit too big for the job,

so i bought an electric die-grinder and disks.

[A new tank costs 2500b.]

I was able to finish removing the clips without further piercing the tank,

but was unable to find any ‘Bondo’, to smooth things up, so just epoxied

a 1 baht coin over the small hole.

Chemical resistant epoxy mind you.

So, with time running short for Laos departure,

we sprayed her from the can, and re-mounted tank the next day.

Yellow looked supa, especially not up close.

Manly.

After filling with gas, she cranked strongly but no start.??

Maybe a piece of crud introduced to the carb?

Oh! Kill switch, 5 5.

Vroom & zoom, off for new tires and sprockets.

Bla, bla, off to Korat,===, Ubon, ants, X-ing and landing Pakse.

Ride around for a couple of days.

Looking good, running good….

\\\\\\ 2 b cont. \\\\\\

[papa al]

Alas, papa come down from my Pakse GH room, post siesta, to find

the tank leaking [into a pail of water.]

at a disconcerting rate.

Apparently chemical-resistant not same same gasoline-proof.

Lady from hotel jumps me ‘why you not tell me; people smoking around here.’

papa is like ’why you not tell me!’

The guy got a hose and some 1.5L bottles and we drained her.

Found a tuk-tuk guy to take me & tank to a weld shop.

Left it a few hours,…150,000kip = $19.75

Same for total tuk-tuk service.

Poured the gas back in and, 2 weeks later, still good.

Actually, papa be digging on the ‘yellow/welded-patch’ look.

Beyond manly. Rugged/hooligan.

So the other nite, here in Vientiane, papa left the bike parked on the main street right in front of the GH, parked into the curb, at a 45-deg. angle.

Next morning i noticed the bike was parked the other way, facing out.

Also noticed some more paint scratches on the tank.

Looks like papa needs to buy another can of spray paint.

Yellow, or just clear coat?

Edited March 6, 2016 by seedy
font

[Lucky33]

I would just go with the clear coat, it sounds like you have a good look going for you .

[moe666]

Papa has the scratch coat going

[papa al]

Doing web-search on Laos, came across website indicating that April is the hottest month.

Below that, found current conditions in Luang Probang:

Zero!