I’m giving up on the plastic Can-Am Qualifier fuel tank. I watched every YouTube instructional video, read all the vintage MX forums. I shaved. I sanded. I used heat and the recommended solvents. It was all for naught. After 40 years, the adhesive for the decals somehow altered the plastic under it. While a razor blade would smoothly curl off a layer of plastic on the rest of the tank, the plastic under the logo is granular and slightly puffy, even well below the surface. I heated it to the point of melting and it still didn’t smooth out. No matter what, this tank will have “Can-Am” visible on the sides as long as it exists.
I’m disappointed, because the size and shape of this tank really suited the bike, but the whole point of going with this plastic tank was perceived ease. After all my struggles against rusty, leaky, flaky old steel on my CL125S resto-mod, and all the horror stories of what modern fuels do to fiberglass, I was really hoping to just have something hassle-free: a tank that I could slap on, dump some fuel in and go. At this point, that ship has sailed. Besides, I am trying to make this NOT look like a dirt bike, and the polyethylene really goes against that.
So, I’m tentatively back to the old Rex tank I originally planned to use for this project. It’s actually in fairly good shape (with the exception of a small stress crack near one of the petcock fittings). It’s even a fairly pleasing shape, but a bit small, which might look out of proportion with the seat, which will have to be unavoidably wide given the width of the frame. It’s also a bit more old-timey looking than I’d like. My concept is to make something that looks like what an individual might have created in the mid-’80s to update a Bultaco, and the Rex tank obviously from an earlier era.
