Making a tank fit

Hey guys!

I´m into the process of making a XS500 tank fit onto my XS 750 frame.
The tank tunnel seems to be not wide enough in the front (at the mounts)...so I thought about using a hammer to work the inside a bit down...?

How would you guys solve this?
Which kind of hammer woud you guys use?

Thanks!

Hey Ryan. I assume this is the tank I sent you. I hope it's good for you. As far as the fit thing, that's exactly what I did with a CB500T tank to put it on a CB750. Just a little massage with a hammer that has a convex head. I marked the area with a sharpie, then slowly pinged evenly within the lines. No hard banging and it will slowly, and evenly stretch the metal. You can make it look like it was meant to be that way from factory.

irk miller said:

Hey Ryan. I assume this is the tank I sent you. I hope it's good for you. As far as the fit thing, that's exactly what I did with a CB500T tank to put it on a CB750. Just a little massage with a hammer that has a convex head. I marked the area with a sharpie, then slowly pinged evenly within the lines. No hard banging and it will slowly, and evenly stretch the metal. You can make it look like it was meant to be that way from factory.

Click to expand...

Hey irk!yes thank you all fine, unfortunately the tank rusted a bit on the way to austria, but nothing what a good hand of phospric acid can fix

Oh good to know, hard to start banging such a nicely shaped tank with a hammer ;D
will this also work on the "formed edge" of the tank, the steel will be way harder there because of the fold...

cheers and thanks for your fast delivery...tank is sweet and looks bees knees on the xs 750!

Had some time and started to ding the tank with a convex hammer.
Slow and steady working my way,I somehow created a step which is hard to hammer flat...how would you deal with this?

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Looks like that metal was stretches too much inward...I'm no metal working expert, but you might try chopping it and welding back on now, or maybe if you could get a convex bar behind it and put it back to original a little bit and then try again but this time start at the out edges of where you want the tunneling to be. Let me know what you come up with!


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Use a flat hammer on the ridge. Contact exactly on the ridge line. That first line of hammering is too deep looking. You've got to kinda think of it as stretching the metal to fit. It's not just a hammer thing. Work the whole area you want to shape not just one area at a time. I'd be really careful near the front, to much pressure in that area will cause those lips/edges by the neck to curve inward. Also the amount of rust is discouraging for doing something like this. That rust if it has "thinned" the metal by where you're hitting it could cause a hole/tear in it. Good luck man


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You could heat the ridge carefully and hammer it in, you want to shrink, not stretch the sheet right there.