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Fuel Tank. This was always going to be traumatic. The Honda race replica ones seem to be the only ones that fit, and these are horribly expensive - something like £250. I had budgeted for one because I couldn't see an alternative. I bid on eBay for a tank that looked like it might fit and got it for £42.60 including delivery. I wasn't optimistic but thought it worth a chance. When it arrived, I laid it on the frame and thought " I can make this fit" and promptly went to the pub to re-acquaint myself with Rev James! When I came back, I had a closer look and somewhat to my surprise, I found it had all the locating sockets corresponding with my frame. It was immediately clear that the two were a match made in Heaven - the tank was designed for a CB250, so it was out with the wet and dry and set to. The tank had clearly seen better days so all the old paint was tripped off and a few dents and dings repaired. Unfortunately, when I put petrol in it, several leaks were evident. Two of these were in the seam between the tank shell and its bottom. I ground out the affected areas and filled them with epoxy glue, leaving the tank inverted whilst it cured so the glue would seep right into the fracture. Once cured, I packed the indentation with more epoxy and both leaks were cured.
The tank was then etch primed, and given a coat of primer filler followed by several coats of two pack in bright red. Two new fuel taps were bought and fitted making the job complete.... well almost. I later discovered the two pack paint blistering on one side, clearly the result of a hairline fracture allowing fuel to seep out under the paint. This was resolved by applying a special tank repair epoxy internally. There are several products available that claim to seal leaky tanks, but only one or two are suitable for fibre glass. The one everybody thinks of is "PETSEAL", but this is no use as it works only on metal tanks. An additional reason for using the specified sealer is to negate the effects of the increased percentage of ethanol which is now being used in unleaded fuel. As you may know, ethanol eats fibreglass! I used KBS Tank Sealer which is apparently now in short supply, but Caswell Plating have an alternative which comes highly recommended by several users. The tank as shown has a distinct orange look - colour not finish - but that is due to the camera flash. It is actually bright red.
The tank was secured using the original rubber mounts at the front, and two 6mm pins welded to a plate bonded to the underneath, these pins locating in two holes in the frame cross member, and finally secured using 3mm R Clips. Robber strip insulation was used between the tank and the frame. Mudguards - hardly appropriate for a road racer.... if there is mud on the track, than I will be going home early! However, I really don't like to see any machine without a front guard so I decided to fit one. This was really quite straightforward. There are literally dozens of plastic mudguards in breakers yards and the hardest part is choosing which to have. I wanted to keep as much faith as possible with the original Works Hondas and eventually decided on one from a Honda VF500F11. I chose that because I owned such a bike once and really liked the style, particularly the small aerofoil moulded behind the mounting holes. I bought this one for a few pounds and modified it so that it could be mounted using the original CB250 horseshoe bracket.
This bracket, although not essential, does stiffen up the front end, hence my decision to re-use it thus. I opened up the gaps in the mudguard to make it more in keeping and prepped it for paint, more of which will be written later. Fairing - Lady Luck smiled on me in this matter. Fairings and seats are available for the CB250/350 off the shelf from Bardney Racing so that's what I bought. I had to make up the mounting brackets and decided these must be quickly detachable so they were fabricated using small bore tube for the male part, and a size slightly larger for the female. The female parts were bonded into the fairing nose and sides, and the males mounted on fabricated alloy plates which were bolted to conveniently located threads in the frame. The male part was tapped to M8 and the alloy plates drilled to half their depth to locate the ends of the male parts, which were tappes M8 and locked solid with cap head bolts.
The brackets were mated by sliding the male part into the female part and drilling through for a 3mm R Clip. A word of advice. These need to be able to be quickly separated in the event of the fairing requiring removal so the male part must be a loose fit in the female. In order to make this so, I heated up the female part to cherry red and then opened out the ends for about 2 inches with a steel mandrel. This gave about 10 thou clearance which turned out to be ideal - loose without being sloppy. Seat - Another off the shelf item from the same supplier as the fairing. As with the fairing, it came without bracketry and must be designed to be quickly removed in the event of attention being required in the paddock. I used two steel pins welded to a plate which was subsequently bonded to the base of the seat. These pins locate through holes in the frame cross member and are secured by 2mm R Clips. These are perfectly adequate as the seat is held down by the weight of the rider and the pins serve only to stop the seat moving sideways, or falling off in the event of rider and bike losing contact. To make doubly sure, I bonded a right angle bracket to the rear hump of the seat and welded another pair of pins to the frame which locate in holes in the bracket and again are secured with R Clips. Rubber strip was used between the brackets and the seat to minimise the effect of vibration. (Picture to follow for clarity.) Battery Box - This was fabricated from scratch, and doubles as a splash guard for the rear wheel. I made the four component parts from fibre glass matting laid up onto rigid plastic sheet. The vertical piece was bonded to the right side and bottom, and the left side was made removable to facilitate changing the battery if required. Once fabricated, nuts were bonded in where the right side would be screwed to, and the entire fabrication prepped and painted with two pack paint, using knifing stopper to fair in any blemishes. It actually looks a little slab sided but it certainly does both its jobs well and weighs very little. I also used this to mount the starter solenoid out of harms way inside and the remote starting battery connections below. The entire assembly is secured to the rear frame rails by cable ties.
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