Am more than a little pleased today. Late fall or early winter (ish) was doing some work to the old Road Glide. While inside the fuel tank for the first time in probably 25,000 miles I found the lining coming off. Was a significant mess.
A local and talented painter could have painted a new tank and airbrushed on the tank sides what was originally decal under the clear. Would have been Freaking expensive (capital F) expensive. Tank unavailable from the manufacturer for a long time. Even had it been the option would have been freaking expensive. No way I could (or at least would try) any of the various lining options for home-brew. No faith I could get the old lining out completely without ruining the original paint and, quite frankly, don't trust the home-brew lining kits long term even on new tanks.
What used to be a somewhat common service it now seems is almost a lost art. Found two companies that seemed legit and experienced. Went with an outfit called GTL Advantage in North Hollywood, CA. On the phone the guy would talk and explain as long as you needed and made a good professional first impression. Someone locally had used them once a few years ago also (didn't hurt).
In the interim I moved, had a screwed up garage space for awhile, but today got around to swapping the tanks. It was gone perhaps three weeks. Sending over the winter perhaps made a difference there. It came back even more well packaged then when I sent it. More importantly the outside and its original paint is flawless and the inside is gorgeous.
The material used comes from the pristine oils off the beautiful round rear ends of willing BSRs (probably not but they're not giving all the details, an epoxy of some kind). Whatever it is it looks great. They warrant the new lining forever. According to their online gallery they can restore incredible rusted messes or badly failed linings. Art as well as science.
So just in case someone finds the inside lining of their fuel tank to be inside the tank but, also, no longer lining the tank itself there is a solution that's at least as good, if not better, than buying a new tank. it was explained to me that ethanol in fuels is hard on tank linings. Especially on old bikes that never knew about ethanol fuels. Hyperbole on ethanol or not mine was a mess and now it's not. Should someone run in to this issue on their bike the link below is one vendor for consideration I'm very pleased with:
http://www.gastanklining.comThe pic is the newly lined interior. Split image right and left. Looks great and feels hard. Hopefully it holds up as well as it looks initially.