I was lucky; the fuel tank was undamaged when I bought the bike. However, I had to repaint it because the original colour simply didn’t match the new frame colour. I stripped the paint from the tank, and also from the flap that covers the filler cap. For all of the painting, I used spray cans. I used a grey ‘filler undercoat’, that was flattened with wet-or-dry paper and then applied the red paint. I applied gold and black pin-stripes (as the tank had these originally), and I used decals printed on thin vinyl to replace the original Guzzi badges. Lastly, I coated the lot with an 2-part epoxy clear-coat. It was an enormous lot of work; but the tank now looks OK, I think. What I learned:
- Pin-stripes are very tricky to spray, and involve an awful lot of masking out work.
- If you’re painting in your garage, think about where the overspray goes. I’ve an awful lot of belongings that have pink spray residue. Also, be aware that even months after you’ve sprayed, the paint particles will still re-distribute themselves. They particularly seem to like plastics…
- The fumes are nasty, and if you use epoxy top-coat, that’s nasty asl well. Think about what would happen if you breathe in the spray and then it hardens.
- Runs, either in paint, or top-coat, are pretty-well impossible to get rid of.
- Think about what happens when you refuel. You don’t want your new paint just to run off if you spill petrol on it. This is why I used the epoxy clear-coat.
- It’s worth checking that the paints that you use don’t react badly with one another. You really don’t want to be repeating the work because the colour coat is incompatible with another layer!
If you’re contemplating a re-spray, think carefully about whether you really want to do it. It’s quite different to spraying black parts that are supposed to be black. It might well be worth the cost of using a professional.