"Just my kind of stuff. Amazing job on the tank"Yeah thanks, the tank was a bit of challenge, never done anything like that before. My trade is woodgrubb builder but also an ex farmboy and my old man was a mechanic and my brother a fitter and turner so i've picked up a bit over the years. I also like to think I have a bit of mad inventer in me!
The tank is made from 2mm thick plate and has baffles inside to stop the fuel load surging around (I get ribbed over that one but it indicates how many hours was spent on this bike just standing there dreaming up cool ideas!).
To build it I started off by making a sheet metal template that would form the 'U' shape under section of the tank (like a big taco shell wrapped over the frame backbone). After mounting that onto the frame I simply wrapped the the whole lot with glad wrap and proceeded to spray on expanding foam till it was built up into a big blob (very technical stuff)
Then it was time to get the rasp out (maybe my woodgrubb skills helped here) and keep rasping till is was happy
with the shape, making sure the seat fitted, full lock steering clearance was ok etc.
As I'm not even a sniff of a panel beaters peener; crucial to being able to achieve building this thing was that I knew it had to be formed from folded flat plate, there was no panel beating involved at all. Otherwise I couldn't have ever done it. All curves are one dimensional (but I did manage to get a bit of contour into the sides).
At the foam model stage I could see the physical finished shape so I could feel confident about the finished product being just right. Then the fun began with creating the metal work. The foam didn't have much strength but it was firm enough to fold 0.6mm aluminium plate over to form templates, which I trimmed to exact size. After making all the folded templates I flattened them out again and did the whole thing over again laying them out on the 2mm plate and cutting each panel to exact size. To achieve the correct curves I applied a range of bush mechanic skills involving experimenting rolling alloy sheet around various size oil barrels, blocks of 4x2 in vices, rubber mallets and ropes!
After a month or so of rooting around I ended up with a pile of funny shaped folded bits and pieces which were ready to weld together. Dad helped me turn up the threaded fuel cap fitting (those hoseless Acerbis fuel caps are the best!), sorted out the fuel tap mounts (reserve tap), made up a couple of 90 degree tube fittings for the fuel level sight gauge and all was ready!
I wanted the welding to be schmick, so I enlisted Gareth from B&B in Ballarat to stitch it all together for me. He did the whole lot in one hit on a saturday morning in between serving customers. I was rapt! I drove to Ballarat with a box of jigsaw pieces and came home with a brand new fuel tank! Boy what a relief when it fitted on perfectly!
Finished it off with some home made graphics. I got inspiration from early Yamaha logo, can't think which model it was? The Suzuki "S" I had to draw/replicate on my 'puter and then got a signwriter mate to cut it out. The rest is pretty basic really, just hand cut signwriter vinyl all covered with a thick clear protection layer, but the finished thing makes me happy
