Broad Sunlit Uplands

[Bicycle Repairman]

Today I spent a happy dozen hours pushing my Z900 up the slippery slope to some sort of completion. The sun was out and all four pipes were on.

Today was also that chilling point where there is a need to have the engine run for the first time. Naturally a carefully and expensively rebuilt top end and carbs should be a delight to run up, however there is always the nagging doubt that an anvil may have inadvertently been left inside during final buttoning up. After all there are enough people hobbling around with sundry operating theatre tools jammed in their giblets, and those surgeons are experts...

I therefore went to the family vault and brought forth the new, freshly painted and badged petrol tank. The old petrol tank was rusty inside and had been variously painted by people who might well find life a bit challenging now that we've run out of mammoths. Over the hedge it went.

I offered up the tank to my nicely powder coated frame and it didn't fit. I just could not get the thing to slide onto the rubber mounting pucks at all. I tried all angles, no luck. My good natured neighbour came home from work whilst I was desperately trying to fit the tank and gave me a hand. sadly we couldn't get it to go on at all. It seems too narrow at the front and fouls against the frame tubes. If I take off the rubber pucks it will reluctantly sit down, but not with the pucks in.

At that point it occurred to me that 900 series tanks differ and certainly Z1 series tanks are different from later models. However searching for the differences came up with lots of opinions and burbling about seams and locking caps but no actual descriptions. I worry that I may have the wrong tank. That sort of thing is quite normal when presented with the possibility that £1000 and eight months wait may have been just a beginning.

by rigging up a fuel supply I did manage to get the engine running, thankfully. Those Doremi pipes are LOUD! Sadly I will have to ride it with a jam jar sellotaped to the top rail instead of the world's most expensive petrol tin in diamond dark green. Happily hipsters will be delighted at a new and enticingly ironic jam jar, but I'll know that it just isn't right.

Is it possible that I have a Z1 tank? Is it just a royal pain to fit the tank anyway and I should have more trust in the family mallet? Could it have shrunk during the great long wait? Did the famously expensive powder coating house actually put an inch of extra thickness on the frame thus explaining the extra wheelbarrowful of cash? Are my pucks possessed?

[Garry.L]

Are you sure it's an A4 tank?......

The later Z thou tank while looking pretty much identical is actually narrower across the frame opening.

[DavidZ1R]

Is it a new patten tank? They come primed, I understand that some are tight to go on the rubbers, I have been told they will fit on once the rubbers have been shaved down, if it ain't! Well wrong tank.

[mark d]

Hi , I just had the same problem with a new tank that i got from z power
It was real tight , the solution i found was to slightly drill out the rubbers that
Hold the tank in place , i drilled them just enough so the drill bit did not go right through , this then allowed the rubbers to push on the frame a little bit more and then i used fairy liquid , or you could use a Vaseline type product on the rubbers and after a few on and offs with the tank it now slots on and off ok , z power did say they were a little tight but with a bit of perseverance it all came out ok
Mark

[slappa13]

I've found over the years a z1 z1a z1b tanks fit all frames, but I've never tried a z1000 tank on the z900

[Bicycle Repairman]

Sage advice Wise Ones, thank you.

The tank did come from our friends at Z Power. It seems to be living up to expectations.
I'll have a go at the rubber pucks following your guidance.