I got the fuel tank mounted. In British fashion, the BSA OIF Export tank is designed to be secured by a central mounting bolt. Rather than permanently weld a stud or bracket onto the frame, or modify the frame further, I decided to utilize the unused bosses I’d originally added for mounting the rear shock, back when I was messing around with a monoshock arrangement. I bent up a bracket out of 18 ga. galvanized steel (the thickest my dinky HF brake can bend).
I realize that using four M8 bolts to mount a bit of light-gauge sheetmetal is slightly absurd, but in the immortal words of Nik Blackhurst, “Overkill is my second favorite kill.”
The tank rubbers at the front and rear are standard BSA issue, however the tank needed to be raised significantly at the back. You can see the two strips of thick rubber I added to the rear mount. A length of threaded rod runs down through the three pieces. Also, since my backbone tube isn’t quite as large in diameter as the OIF BSA-Triumph frame, I need a tiny bit more width. The stick-on weatherstripping actually does the trick perfectly, but I might try to come up with something else just to make it less amateurish looking. The two rubber bumpers on the bottom mount are non-BSA-spec, just to keep the tank from rocking side-to-side.
To keep the sheet metal from deforming when the center bolt is tightened, there’s a thick steel backer plate between the bolt head and the box. The hole for the bolt is threaded, to lock the bolt and keep it from turning when the top nut is tightened.
It all needs a bit of tweaking to be perfect, and I need to get some new, proper hardware for it, but once the center bolt is cranked down it’s not going anywhere, and it looks good.
