OK, I bought this short track tank from a salvage place up in Indiana about a 20 minute drive from haspin during TF07 thanks to erectordale and dizastersfun69. It was faded terribly, but I got an OK deal on it, $80 for it and the shrouds. After riding the flat tracker with its black short track tank, I've come to really appreciate the feel it has with the narrow seat and tank area. I'm currently in the process of setting up my 86 R as a part time MXer. I did some suspension work on the front (with some parts I dont think anyone here has used yet ) and removed my IMS 4 gallon tank that was on it. So I decided to get this old tank out, and have a look at it. After looking it over, I had decided I was going to walk over to the house and get a box of razor blades I have and scrape the white fading off. LonesomeTriZ's wife Melissa first showed me this technique a few years ago and it works very well.
As I was on my way out the shop, I passed by a small container nearly empty of my favorite aluminum polish, Mothers mag and aluminum polish. For shits and giggles with absolutely no expectations of anything happening, I put some on a rag and rubbed on one of the places on the tank. I seen instant, albiet very small results. I applied a bunch at one time and scrubbed the shiat out of the one area, I was AMAZED at the results. Infact, if you look really close at my finger you can see a bit of a reflection horizontally across it.
The shine was awesome, like a brand new OEM finish. Maybe better! I've ended up using 2 different types of rags. One a little bit rouger, coarser type of material and then a yellow terry cloth like I normally use for brining the shine back into polished aluminum. The coarse red rag, after ALOT of scrubbing takes the oxide off, and then you can use the yellow terry cloth to really get it glossed over. The only downside to this, you have to use an awful lot of the polish to get good results. But hell, at $5 a can for the mothers I figure its worth the investment. I honestly had this gas tank written off as nothing more then a novelty that would never be usable. Its almost half way done now and will look almost like new when I'm done. This should be done to EVERY plastic fuel tank even if its not this bad just as preventive maintenance.
Will post more pics when I get closer to finishing it and of course also when it is done.