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The gas tank cabinets

When the garage is full, there is always the second bedroom.
The California house had a spare room behind the single-car garage where I set my shop up. Here in Florida, Tranquility Base has a two-car garage, but I am actually trying to keep my car in one side, so there is less room. So in the spare bedroom, I have three home-made cabinets where I put the gas tanks and some other light stuff.. Sportster_garage_gas-tank-cabinets-01
To start right out with the money shot, an XLCR tank I bought to replace the fiberglass one on my 1980 show bike. Behind it is a factory seat for a 1979, an old buddy seat and some chopper seat on top. On the left is a black piece I am pretty sure goes under the XLCR fender I talked about in the top shelf post.
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Some of those funky washers that support the rubber grommets on late-model fuel tanks, and some isolation mounts in a bag above that.

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Here is the the headlamp shroud for the XLCR setup, a sissybar you can barely see, and the XLCR seat. When Kenny Puccio built the 1980 show bike, he cut off the fender mount tabs on the rear of the frame, so I am not sure I can make this stuff work.
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A stock 1979-1981 oil tank, I guess it should be in the oil tank tub if it would fit. Also the roadster tank from I think was it late 70s or early 1980s. A lot of my tank quest is for something that holds more than 2.2 gallons. When a Sportster is your daily driver, it gets old having to gas it up every few days.

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More big-money stuff. A 1959 Sportster tank and two K-model tanks. I have the cherry-red junker I was thinking of sawing open to see if I could then weld closed, but I just don't think my welding skills are up to it, even with a TIG welder.
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A late-model peanut tank, you can tell from the big loops on the front mount. I think I had this on the 1979 bobber at one time.

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The loops are on the read mount too, and you can see those rubber grommets and standoff hardware that was in the baggie above.
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This is a big-bike flatside tank I want to mount on my 1977, which I converted to use flatside tanks. This is a much nicer paint job, but the ones on the 1977 now are 5-gallon and these are only 3.5, so I reserve the right to take these off after I try them. The tank came with the Pingel petcock. My concern is that the petcock will interfere with the rear head on the Sportster.

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Here is the right-side flat-side big bike tank. I have learned you can have the best-running, easiest starting, trustiest Sportster but if it does not have pretty chrome air filter and pipes, and nice paint job, nobody cares. Take some crappy-running beater and put this tank on it, and it is complements for days. I guess its just like people, appearance is more important than integrity, welcome to Marketing 101.

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This is a peanut tank I had on my 1962 for a while. I did the rattle-can paint job and even did half-decent on the panel. The tank probably got some big scrap from the handlebar lever of another bike, so I put that American flag decal on it.

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Here is the underside of the tank, you can see it has the earlier tabs to mount it.

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Here is an AMF-era peanut tank. 		border bar
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This peanut tank has the later-style Keihin petcock bung.

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Here is a big-bike FX tank, I don't think these ever came on a Sportster.

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Here is the underside of the FX tank, the rear mount used a spring and rubber bushing setup. 		border bar
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An FX tank hacked to mount to a Sportster frame.

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I made a bracket so it would mount to the Iron Sportster frame. Sportster_garage_gas-tank-cabinets-12
This side panel was made by Kenny Puccio for my 1980 show bike. I am not big on covers that hide problems, so I took it off. I put this on the top shelf with the aluminum frame cover that was also on the bike.
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I despise fumbling with spacer washers to mount a gas tank, so I dialed in the spacers and brazed them on the front tabs of the gas tank.

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Here are some Sportster gas tanks all safe-and sound on top of those home-made cabinets I spoke of. No earthquakes in Florida so I am not too worried, but note I am keeping the rare stuff inside the cabinets.
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