My last job for now was to sort out a new fuel tank, the original tank from this CB550 was shot to pieces and I do mean shot.  I looked as though somebody had shot it with a shot gun it had that many holes in it.

So I started looking around for another tank to suit my vision.  What I came up with was a tank from a 1975 Honda CB500T.  Initially it looked like it should fit, but I would probably have to move the petcock bung.  What I found was a job that was surprisingly simple to enable fitment on the bike.

Firstly I had to trim down the rubber pucks and mounting poles that sit on the frame as the CB500 tank is slightly bigger in the tunnel area, I trimmed each side about 1cm each side, this enabled fitment to the frame.  Next problem was the petcock, the problem I had was the petcock when fitted in its original position was hitting the number 1 carb.  I thought that I would have to blank the original bung and install a new one, however what I did instead was to raise the rear of the tank about 4cm using a piece of rubber and then turned the petcock about 1/4 of a turn to the rear.  What this did was raise the petcock high enough to miss the carbs and then the turn made the downward facing petcock nipples so that they sat in between the carb hardware.

I really love the look of the CB500 tank, I think the knee dents are subtle and nice looking.

Finally I couldn't wait to see how the seat unit looked on the bike so I threw it on along with the exhaust headers so the engine was sealed to the elements.