hey ya got a reply..... I am doing the same thing for better or for worse... So far it is better. I have a 1981 XS Yamaha SH and the tank was original paint till a few days ago.
Since my paint was 21 years old, and the tank had minor dings and dent, with a lot of "Sun Cracks" on the old candy apple red, I decided to sand off the old paint. WRONG!
I found out better to use "SUPER STRIPPER" from my local hardware store. That worked pretty good, but I did have to repeat appling the stuff, and I got a burn from it above my gloves when I absentmindedly scratched a itch. I also used a drill mounted skuff pad from walley world. When the tank was bare steel it felt greasy, prolly from the stripper resisdue. But at that point I Kreemed the inside of the tank.
After that went in some of the cleaners escaped as the rubber seal was bad. I have a new seal on hand. So the etching got on the out side and made a stain.
I wanted to remove the emblems on this paint job, and found factory dents and a bracket under the emblems, so I used stripper there as well. After washing off the stripper the tank was still greasy feeling, and I used some naval jelly where rust had began to form by the brackets. That left a clean area, and I got the idea to make a wash from the naval jelly, and used a skuffy to wipe it one with. That cleaned things up pretty well. At that point I hammered down the bracket where the emblems went, and used a cream type bondo to fill in the factory dents and other dents, which I sanded with a bit of 220 grit by hand block. I found the 220 worked out really good on the rest of the tank as well.
After that I wiped the whole tank with a damp acetoned rag, and began to prime with rustolem rusty red primer, and got 5 coats on.
At first I thought I did not blend well one of the emblem places, but it looks fine now.
And now I have 2 coats of gray primer. SO that is 7 layers of primer now. I don't know how much primer is too much. All most every coat of primer was wet sanded with 600 grit with running water in the kitchen sink, and it is smooth and fair so far. And thats is where I am right now.....
