Peanut Tank? King Tank? How about an Emperor tank!

[Preacher]

I have always loved the peanut tank on the sportster. The timeless design is so popular that every third custom, Harley based bike made has one installed. The one problem, in my mind, has been the limited fuel capacity.

Manufacturers have gone from the original 2.2gal to the "King" tank with just over 3 gallons, and while that is an improvement, it was not enough. The problem lies in keeping that distinctive shape while increasing fuel capacity. Just making the tank larger also makes it taller, not a good thing in most people's opinion.

Not being a fabricator, I had an idea for a tank design but no way to make it happen. I contacted a friend of mine who could do the work and the rest, as they say, is history, the "Emperor" tank was born. What follows is a step-by step pictorial on how it was done.

This is the tank I got from an XLForum member for a really good price because it had a tank-slapper dent in one side.



The dent



I packaged up the tank and shipped it off to my buddy. His first step was to hack it apart!



The disassembled tank

[Preacher]

Next step is to hammer out the dent



Then, to fix what I have always felt was a major issue with these tanks, we are installing a sight-glass fuel guage.



Next, to relocate the filler neck so I can eke out the last bit of capacity from the tank. In this picture, you can also see the 3" gap in the top of the tank, a hint of more to come.



In this picture you can see the patch panel being fabricated to fill the big gap. After much thought and some discussion with Jay, I decided to go with a raised panel for that Mad Max look, rather than a flush panel that would leave a smoother surface.

[Preacher]

Here you can see a superlative bit of welding skill. The original cutouts for the filler nick have been filled, the new hole in the patch panel drilled, the filler and patch panel have been welded in thier new spots.

[Preacher]

To insure that the tank mounts up to the original mounting points, the original tunnel must be centered and reattached and fill plates made to take up the gaps.

One side of the tunner neck is done.



Both sides of the front.



Now you have to cut and weld in patch panels for the bottom as well.

One side



Both sides



That's it for now. Next steps are finish work. Clean and smooth the tank, leak check and seal, then paint and install. More pics to follow as the work gets done.

[Mr Jimi]

Preach, your fuel gage looks like a Gary mod.
Should work good

[mordak]

HOLY HELL Preacher that's coming along awesome!!!
:supercool:

[chopper]

Good job Preacher. Cant wait to see the rest of the pics.

[D.R.Funderburg]

That is cool,it is going to look great on your bike

[Buck]

and another bike builder is born......

Nice work your buddy did there. I have done the same to a few tanks over the years, seems the cool tanks for any custom I did were far to small. The key is to increase capacity yet still keep the cool original shape / look of the tank. Nice work.


kgdb