SuzukiSavage.com - Gas Tank Mod

John in Kalifornia

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Gas Tank Mod
07/04/12 at 19:46:41

Hi All,

Another idea from the brain trust for our Street Tracker. I like the side profile of the Ryca tank but do not like how wide it is, or the hole for the speedo that gets covered by the metal plate. In their quest for using the original parts at all cost, they lost me. I don't mind haunting junkyards for parts.

What I found was a tank off a Suzuki GS450L I think it is anyway. I went with the same brand as the frame splits under the tank into two tubes. That makes it hard to find a tank to fit over the rails. I'm not trying to go with the bobber Sportster look with the tank on top of the frame.

In a previous post I mentioned this tank and the consensus from you smart people was that it wasn't that much different in shape from the original Savage tank. I agree that it looked too big for the Street Tracker look.

Was over at my brother's today inspecting his turbo Pinto motored Morris Minor and showed him the pics of the Ryca tank mod. He said if I would cut off the bottom of the GS tank, he could weld it up. He would even guarantee it wouldn't leak for 5 miles or 5 minutes, whichever came first.

I did some sketching and here is what I came up with. The GS tank is on the top, the Ryca mod Savage tank on the bottom. Cutting an inch or so off the bottom of the GS tank seems like it may make for an attractive item. Look at the top views on the right. No ugly hole in the middle that has to be covered with a plate and the GS tank is much narrower.

Considering the Ryca costs of cutting the tank and the cover plate I figure I can buy and screw up quite a number of other tanks. Moreover, I get to keep the stock tank in case I need to abandon the project and go back to stock.

Any thoughts, people before I fire up the angle grinder?

John in Kalifornia

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Serowbot YaBB Moderator ModSquad Offline OK.... so what's the speed of dark? Posts: 28660 Tucson Az Gender:	Re: Gas Tank Mod Reply #1 - 07/04/12 at 19:51:31 John in Kalifornia wrote on 07/04/12 at 19:46:41: Any thoughts, people before I fire up the angle grinder? Drain the gas out first... ... I like that idea, better than the Ryca... with that silly speedo hole plate... Go for it, dude!......
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RidgeRunner13 Serious Thumper Offline haulin' the groceries! Posts: 649 Mustang Island, Texas Gender:	Re: Gas Tank Mod Reply #2 - 07/04/12 at 19:59:34 +1 And I like the way you think, keeping the option to back stroke if it doesn't work out like you want. I always try to do mods that I can undo. Sometimes it limits just how wild you can go, but better that than suffering a total loss.
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John in Kalifornia

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Re: Gas Tank Mod
Reply #3 - 07/04/12 at 20:46:27

This bike started as a project for my son and I. We are waiting to get rid of the Honda 350 to make room in the garage. Momma wouldn't appreciate another bike in the backyard. Ordered the chain and sprockets, and the handlebar. Plan is to do the tank mod and chain and bar conversions first. That way the bike is still easily reversible to "stock" sorta if we lose interest.

Waiting for the RYCA guys to come out with the pipe and seat before we take the step of changing the forward controls out. The stock exhaust will get in the way of mid mounted pegs.

Anybody want a Honda 350 Scrambler? Look in bikepics website under "John in Kalifornia" album for pics of the CL350. I rode it around today but my helmet was shedding foam so I had to quit as I was eating crumbs from the liner, shame as it really runs well. I'm a lot better mechanic than I used to be and did a great job rebuilding the carbs and tuning the bike up. Patience comes with age, but sore joints also. Maybe I should stop at Chaparral tomorrow and get a replacement for the 1983 vintage skid lid. I see a lot of riding ahead with the Street Tracker.

John in Kalifornia.

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Cavi Mike Serious Thumper Offline Thumper n00b Posts: 1005 Rochester, NY Gender:	Re: Gas Tank Mod Reply #4 - 07/04/12 at 22:07:50 Looks like these tanks would be the perfect size to remedy the drag-bars-hit-the-tank scenario. I'm kind of in the middle of that pickle right now...
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Serowbot

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OK.... so what's the
speed of dark?

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Re: Gas Tank Mod
Reply #5 - 07/04/12 at 23:01:00

John,... have you seen "Girl with the Dragon Tattoo"?... (American version)...
That CL350 is in there... Cafe'd!... and it's a dream...

I gave away my old CL360.... and now, I'm sorry...

I swear,.. I held the front wheel off the ground through 3rd while attempting to merge on the I-10 once...
Rockin' power and sound... (not like these buzzy crotch rockets)...
Classic British vertical twin rumble...
Lovely bike... if they still made them, now, with electric ignition,... I'd be ridin' one....
... a ton upper, too...

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Ludicrous Speed !... ... Huh

...

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ToesNose Serious Thumper Offline Pardon me, do you have Hot Sauce? Posts: 1993 Mooresville, NC Gender:	Re: Gas Tank Mod Reply #6 - 07/05/12 at 04:23:20 Sounds like a good plan, and seems like you don't have much to loose other then a few bucks and time. Looking forward to seeing the final product
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justin_o_guy2 Serious Thumper Offline What happened? Posts: 55279 East Texas, 1/2 dallas/la.	Re: Gas Tank Mod Reply #7 - 07/05/12 at 07:54:24 IDK hoot about the tank, but if its had gas in it,,& you just start slicing into it, isnt there a pretty good chance its gonna test the pressure containing capacity of the the seams?
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John in Kalifornia

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Re: Gas Tank Mod
Reply #8 - 07/05/12 at 08:25:16

I can see that the front of the tank on the RYCA bike sits much lower on the frame than the stock Savage bike tank does. It says in their write-up on the tank that they do some cutting on the front tunnel. The stock Savage tank looks like it is tilted up at the front. The RYCA bikes have a much more horizontal stance. That would imply that the tank is rotated nose down, which I don’t think is really the case. I believe that the cut they take on the bottom is more of a pie shaped wedge than a straight parallel to the bottom cut. When I manipulate the outlines in CorelDraw, it becomes apparent.

In reality, the GS tank is more rounded on the top than the Savage is. The cruiser/chopper look of the stock bike tank is because the lower portion is fatter in the front. OK, maybe it’s obvious to everybody else but I’m kinda slow.

The plan is to visit the bike this week with a BFH and pound the GS tank from the inside to see how low we can make it sit on the frame. I hope we won’t have to cut off the stalks with the donuts that mount the front of the stock tank. That would violate the “Don’t make any irreversible changes” edict.

The idea is to get tank as low as we can, without cutting the tunnel. That’s too much work. Then take pics from the side and do some “What if” drawing analysis to see where to cut the bottom off. When we cut the tank then we can put it back on the bike to see how it looks before we call in the welder. Take a small cut, maybe an inch or so and go from there. Just bought a 10 pack of HF cutoff disks. Looking forward to making a mess and lots of noise.

John in Kalifornia

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justin_o_guy2 Serious Thumper Offline What happened? Posts: 55279 East Texas, 1/2 dallas/la.	Re: Gas Tank Mod Reply #9 - 07/05/12 at 13:40:44 Dude, take the HF disks back & go to Lowes & get some good ones, theyll last so much longer they actually cost less. AND they wont shower you with little bits of flying cut off disk.,
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John in Kalifornia Full Member Offline SuzukiSavage.com Rocks! Posts: 127	Re: Gas Tank Mod Reply #10 - 07/05/12 at 19:02:38 Yes, I should take tose back, along with the "diamond" saw blade for my Dremel table saw. Should know better than to buy cutting tools or abrasives from HF. John in Kalifornia
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justin_o_guy2 Serious Thumper Offline What happened? Posts: 55279 East Texas, 1/2 dallas/la.	Re: Gas Tank Mod Reply #11 - 07/05/12 at 19:12:08 Hey, John,, looka whut I found.. http://www.theaerosmith.com/custom3.html
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teabowl13

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Re: Gas Tank Mod
Reply #12 - 07/05/12 at 19:29:58

I like the look of your drawings. Another tank might look a little more "CAFE" that the GS, but if this one will fit without completely rebuilding it from the inside, I think it's a good one to try.

The "view from above" is really sweet. Nice and narrow, and afterall, that's the part YOU will be looking at the most.... Grin

Be sure to take some good progress shots and post 'em up here!!

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VINTAGE ROADSTER BUILD: http://suzukisavage.com/cgi-bin/YaBB.pl?num=1323582921

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John in Kalifornia

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Re: Gas Tank Mod
Reply #13 - 07/07/12 at 03:13:32

Tried out the new helmet last evening and rode the CL350 up the street to check on the progress of RpNSht’s XS650 board track bobber project. Took a look at his Ryca cafe and how the tank was mounted. There was a read deep tunnel in the front. Apparently there was a lot of cutting done to make it fit lower on to the frame. The pics on the “Net don’t show this too well. Maybe that $650 Ryca charges to reshape the tank isn’t such an outrageous amount.

I was hoping to just use the brute force method with an assortment of hammers and body dollies to deepen the tunnel. Don't want to have to do too much cutting and welding; just on the bottom. We will see when we get there. Might have to cut off the stock tank mount donuts during the process, or have I mentioned that already?

I did some measurements and computer graphic manipulations to calculate the exact amount of "twist" or nose down change that occurs from Savage to Ryca. Taking into account the wheel size change, shock replacement and fork cutting I came up with 5 degrees. Then I rotated a side view of the frame 5 degrees CCW in CorelDraw. Snapped a horizontal line and came up with the angle of the top frame rail to the horizontal. Then I printed out a triangle wedge that I'll copy on to a piece of plywood.

Why? We don't have all the new wheels, shocks, etc. just a stock bike. I intend to (1) Bang on the tank to get it to fit as low as possible. (2) Prop up the bike using the plywood wedge and a level to simulate the stance after the mods are done. (3) Place the tank back on the frame and draw a horizontal line where the bottom should be cut off.

I'm going to use the manual compression release lever I bought from RpNSht; clearance for that will determine the bottom edge of the tank. The idea is to have the tank and the seat pan bottoms both to be parallel to the ground.

Looks like a backwards approach. Logically, the tank should be fitted AFTER everything else is done. This way, however, we can get right to work on the project without even having the mosickle available. Soon's as I sell the old Honda then we can get the Zook in the stall for mods. Did such a nice restore job on the Scrambler and it runs so well Momma sez I should keep it, tho.

John in Kalifornia

PS- This all seems rather confusing. Want me to post drawings?

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LANCER Serious Thumper Alliance Member Offline Savage Beast Performance Parts Posts: 10666 Oklahoma Gender:	Re: Gas Tank Mod Reply #14 - 07/07/12 at 04:47:41 Quote: John in Kalifornia PS- This all seems rather confusing. Want me to post drawings? yep
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