'82 Murray Tank Fix

Several weeks ago I bought a '82 Murray, for those who don't know they are basically a Puch. Not quite one but they look alot like a Freespirit . Mine was in good condition, which means the frame was strait, gas tank was clean, and the engine runs. Only down side was that it came with a tank that was broken off its mount. The mounts were spot welded in two different places and there was space between the mount and the tank so that with the vibration and rust it basically gave way.

This photo shows where the tabs fit on the mount.

The tabs themselves, one had to be hammered back into shape but it was easy with a anvil.

Here is what the spot welds look like on the tank.

Here is how the tabs are oriented on the tank.

Now since the metal is quite thin, I decided to give it to a competent welder, ie my dad. So we put our heads together and figured out that the best way to weld the pieces together was to first displace any fumes in the tank so that it could be worked on safely. Secondly how to weld it? Well I left it up to my dad, its thin and could be difficult.

Upfront thinking made everything go so much easier, we displaced the fumes by pouring in distilled water until the tank was completely filled. He then welded it back up, basically he welded around the U-shape and fused the crack between the two tabs. Afterwards he emptied out the water and put anhydrous isopropyl alcohol and shook it around in there to mix with the water and remove it. I would show pictures but I don't have my cable to my digital camera and I didn't save it my SD card either way the finished product didn't look pretty but I decided to paint it with some  Rust-Oleum Metallic dark blue paint which matched the current custom paint job(previous owner did that and its pretty good to). I'll have to post the picture of the finished product because the paint pretty much covered the weld and made it look like new.

Other things that came in handy was a brass brush and #4 steel wool to clean off the rust. I'd assume anyone with a Murray who would like to fix a broken tank or reinforce their current one could send bring theirs to just about any weld shop and have theirs welded up so they don't have to worry about the two spot welds ever again.