Mounting a STD/DLX tank on a Custom

Here's info and pictures from the tank mod that RedRyder has done.

I have an 81 custom and have been looking for Deluxe tank in decent shape for some time... A parts/labor swap between LRCXed (aka Larry) and me brought my search to an end. I got to spend a few hours with Larry and wish I could have spent more... Larry has a wealth of knowledge and a great resource for anything CX.

We discussed the tank mod a little bit and he highly recommended having the tank rubber mounted... and I agreed. The deluxe tank has two C-shaped "ears" that mate to rubber bumbers on either side of the frame. I located a set of the rubber bumpers as the Custom tank does not use these. Doing a dry fit, it was obvious that the width of the rubber bumpers and the metal nubs on the frame (where they mount to) would not accomodate the width of the tank.

Here is a crude drawing of what I'm describing and a method I used to correct it:

Here are the shoulder bolts cut down to size and the rubber mounts.

I ground away ~50% of the metal nubs as to keep enough thread for the shoulder bolts. I also had to remove some of the rubber until the width snugly fit the front of the tank.

...and with the rubber bumpers

Now that the front is secured, you'll need to lop off some of the excess from the back of the tank:

I did this with a Dremel and cut off wheel bit. You see a ridge on the frame that you should try to use as a cutting guide. When your done, it should be snug against this ridge:

I wanted to reuse the stock rear rubber tank mount (which is the same for either the custom or deluxe). To do this, I had to make to cutouts to mimick the original. The hole was kind of a bitch to get lined up.. I was slightly off center and low with my

initial drill (start with a very small diameter bit). I corrected for this by enlarging the whole with a grinding bit on my dremel (PITA).

And finally, the rear rubber mount installed:

Thank tank fits great and is rubber damped to withstand hopefully years and years of good vibrations!!

The only other issue to address is the steering stops.. The fork legs hit (barely) the tank when turned to either extreme! My thoughts are to weld up the stops and grind them down to allow slightly decreased steering range.

Part 2

Here is my fork clearance, or lack there of..

I initially thought the fork tubes barely touched... Well they actually hit pretty good. Without modding the steering stops, I would have to move the tank back ~3/4" to get proper fork/tank clearance.. Forgive the poor picture quality.

Since I'm happy with the current tank mounting setup (see my above post), I plan to modify the steering stops.. I initially thought of building up some weld on the stops and grinding them back to reduce the the throws. If someone has any other ideas, I'm all ears.