Vintage BMW Motorcycle Owners

Well, I guess you are all right. My dad also used to say "I'm not rich enough to buy twice cheap".
But, in the meantime, I got a response from these guys https://www.vintagebikecustoms.com/?s=r ... pe=product
As follows:

Dear Sir
Thank you for contacting us.
Yes we have BMW R51/3 fuel tank with us .
We have original tank for the same thus we use it to reproduce the similar tanks from it. Therefore all the technical parameters as well as the physical appearance will be identical to the original one.
The tank we'll supply will be externally primered and internally coated with a rust preventive sealant.
We can supply the tank as per your preference so, if you want a raw tank then it will be as stated above or if you want a painted tank then you can share a reference image for your preference and we'll make one for you accordingly.
Regards
Team VBC

This seller seems to me the best of all the ones I have seen on the net, his explanation is also plausible and logical.
Last night I Tin soldered again a few points that leaked in my original tank. I hope this has solved the problem, but if the leaks come back, I see no other option.
After all, original tanks are not available and if so, they can be in the condition of my tank and even worse, not to mention that they will cost a fortune.
So we'll wait and see.

Have you tried a radiator shop for repairs?

Yes, they did not want to touch it, they claimed that the metal wall was too thin and would not withstand the heat of the process.
I did the repair myself with a tin rod. Surface preparation is the most important thing here.
Indeed it was very difficult because I could not fill the tank with water in favor of cooling the metal because the holes were too big.
I now remember I once soldered in the toolbox area, about 10 years ago.
Holds up well to this day.
Let's hope for the best.

Good luck!

Thanks!

Yes, good luck.

Bought a couple of R71 tanks from India off eBay for a "custom" project I'm working on. The first one took so long to arrive (about 5 months) that eBay refunded my purchase before it got here, so I ordered another one from a different seller. That one took about 2 months and the first one arrived while I was waiting for the second one. Both are crude at best and neither fit as they should "out of the box". Both required heating and bending mounts to properly fit my frame. The emblem mounts were crooked on one of them as well. They (one of them) will actually work well for my purposes as I will be heavily modifying it for what I need (and I didn't want to destroy a "real" tank), but I can't imagine using one for a restoration, and, even worse, buying one pre-painted.
Just one guy's experience.

Chuck S.

Bought an R25 gas tank for an R25 bobber project built from parts. Fun around town. Got the tank from h.kroyalsauto on Ebay. Really quite good for a tank hand made in a small shop in India. My only complaint so far is that the gas cap neck was not flat where it meets the cap. 15 minutes of fiddling around and it was fixed. The primer is crap and the tank will have to be stripped. Expect some surface rust and possibly some bondo. Not a problem. Still easier to remedy than a dented, rusted out original. Also i would not trust any tank liner. Remove it and re-do with a good liner. Tank was shipped free, arrived in about 3 weeks. The quality of this one is good enough for a restoration. Check out the seller. These guys did OK on this tank. Good Luck Todd R

I can tell you for sure that the mounting holes do not line up with the hole in the frame and bracket. At least on the ones I had in my hands. Hand hammered out, poorly made, waste of $.

I had a tank made in India a few years ago. The vendor was “us.vidhi”. It is a 6.5 gal Schorsch Meier copy, without the tool box and with 2 petcock bungs, painted and pinstriped. It cost about $700 with shipping to California.

The quality is so so. One of the baffles inside the tank had come loose during shipping. I was able to remove it, luckily. (I don’t really think it is needed.) The other one is welded tight. The paint job and pin stripes are pretty good, but the paint used is not great. It came off around the gas cap where it is exposed to gas fumes all the time. I sanded it off there and painted around with some good paint. You don’t notice it because it is covered by the gas cap. One of the petcocks leaked. I squared up the bottom of the bung and used some gasket sealer to stopped the leak. The paint around the leaking bung also bubbled up and I did the same as I did around the gas cap to fix it. I have to be careful about tightening the petcock too tight because the bungs seem to be made of pretty soft material (an old piece of water pipe). I ran taps/dies through all of the threaded holes before screwing in any screws. This was especially necessary on the petcock bungs, my new Karkomas wouldn’t screw on before (I had to buy a die for that). The double petcocks are nice; they make it a lot easier to remove the tank without having to fool with the crossover tube. All in all, I’m happy with it, it is a nice large functional tank, for less than half the cost of a decent original.