The CB1100 Community Forum

Beautiful new vintage inspired tank from Samurider arrived at my daughter's where I keep my SR400 in LA. Arrived in town late yesterday hoping to get it together this weekend.

I really like the SR400, but man what a pain the tank replacement has turned out to be. To be clear, the CB1100 tank replacement was no walk in the park. The "clever" fuel line disconnect on the 2018 was pretty far from clear and obvious, even with the help of the service manual. The SR400 takes the cake though. I'm a pretty persistent man, and this one won't beat me, but what is with these manufacturers who make tank replacement so difficult? In this case, it's mainly a matter of getting the right leverage to get the hoses back with so little slack and clearance.

I have to leave tomorrow on the red-eye, and will only have an hour or so with my other obligations, so I doubt I'll get it together. Maybe another month before I get another crack at it. Argh!!!

Dang. Mechanical hang ups are so frustrating. Makes you wonder what engineers were thinking sometimes. Just be persistent, and patient. Walk away from it as much as needed and come back fresh. Best of luck.

As a design engineer, I can tell you what they were thinking...

Industrial designer: it needs to look sexy +$100

Design engineer: it needs to be easy to maintain +$100, easy to assemble +$100

Project manager: your budget is $75

Snap on type fuel connection is the fastest, easiest, secure/safest, I've experienced so far. Agree, the first time might be little bit more challenging for some riders = normality.

Id still prefer a petcock, with a spring clamp around a 1/4" rubber hose and gravity fed, if it would somehow work with fuel injection lol.

The SR400 has a petcock and it was a breeze to remove the fuel line from it and to drain the tank. The issue is with the two back vent hoses. Easy to get off, but near impossible to get back on. It's a clearance / slack issue. There's a trick to it that I haven't found yet. An extra inch of slack would have made all the difference. I'm persistent though, and I'm sure that I'll get it right. It just didn't need to be so difficult......

Can you pull them from the other end? Attach to the tank then worry about reattaching the other end?

(*sigh*) Throwing a wrench around while in the presence of a pretty enameled gas tank is worrisome.

I was "about ready" to start throwing wrenches, not actually ready.

Anyway, I stuck around and finished the job. Took me 4 more hours. 3 and a half of which were me struggling for just the right angle and just the right approach with just the right channel-locks (small and I had to purchase them specially for the job) for the clamps.

Regarding detaching the lines at the other end, that would have required disassembling the entire bike it appeared. There are four separate lines connected to the tank. The two problem-children were at the rear of the tank. Both had different hose clamps and one of them was just plain intentionally annoying it seems to me. Took forever to get off because it requires a special trick to get it undone using some Rube Goldberg combination of movements. Then you had to reverse the movements to get the thing latched back up, all with no space to work, and no slack in the lines. Patience usually wins out though, and it did in this case. Oh, and the two back hoses weren't vent hoses. They were actually fuel lines. I need to get the real service manual to understand the fuel system adequately. There's a petcock that is on the side of the tank and I presume that goes to the fuel pump. But somehow at least one of these other two lines at the rear of the tank feeds something. I found out the hard way when an intermediate failed attempt that slipped past my quality control procedure resulted in a "gusher" when I started the bike.

As annoying as it was, there is a special satisfaction associated with keeping at something until it's worked out. Ignorance of the fuel system notwithstanding, getting everything back in place the way it's supposed to be ended up in a success.

Before:



After:

Congratulations, tommymck. As you say, sticking with it and getting a result is very rewarding.

Pretty bike that Yammie.