Fixing a broken GPX250 fuel tank
After being away on holiday recently I came home to find the cover that had been on my bike had blown off and there'd been some heavy rain in my absence and the bike wouldnt start. After finally getting it running the story only got worse. After re-fitting the tank and filling it up I noticed a petrol leak.
See Also: My Bike
The poor dude at the petrol station almost had a hernia when I told him my warm bike was leaking fuel onto his fore-court. I hastily moved the bike along the street a way, waited for it to cool down, then pushed the bastard home in disgust. Eventually I calmed down, took the tank off again, and started planning what to do to get it repaired.
Note: Click on any of these thumbnails to see a larger copy of the photo
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Here's the tank showing the bolt on the top-front corner (circled in yellow) that was to blame. Even with the bolt in place fixing the fairing to the tank the fuel was streaming out of it quite freely with a full tank. Zoom in to see the mushroom nut that is now attached on the outside. |
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Here's the fairing with circle indicating the point where the old securing bolt passed through into the threaded section in the tank. |
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Here's a fuzzy close-up of the grommit/hole in the fairing where the bolt passes through to screw into the mounting in the side of the tank. |
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And a view of the inside of that hole and its rubber grommit. There was no extra padding here to space the side of the fairing out from the tank, this rubber section sat on the outside of the tank surface. |
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Here's a close-up of the point where the bolt screws into the tank. You can see that the threaded section is recessed into the walls of the tank itself. The old bolt passed through the fairing wall into this section. At the end of this threaded section I think there must have been a brazed plate that sealed the tank from the inside. It seems that as I screwed the bolt into the hole on the other side of the tank that the bolt dislodged the seal which then allowed the full tank to leak fuel. |
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After consulting Dave, Dennis, Jamie and Pete (thanx Lads) and then taking the tank to Steve Bridge (F1-Engineering) the most agreeable fix has been to solder a stud into the threaded hole and secure the fairing with a mushroom nut from the outside instead of screwing a bolt into the tank hole. |
After a week of taking the bus to work, now it's time to get the tank home, reassemble the bike, and get out on the road. Yee-Ha !!!
See Also: My Bike