gas tank is soldered, turns out I suck at soldering but it's OK. took like 2hrs bc I've never done it and ran into multiple problems. used the wrong solder, the right solder is old and corroded, the 200W solder gun wasnt working so I used a 100W solder gun (turns out I just needed to sand the attachment points on the gun, works fine now). kept getting flux all over my hands somehow. solder was all way bigger gauge than I needed so it did NOT flow well. used a box fan with a filter attached to it while soldering for the idea of a fume hood.
weapon of choice.
wrong solder that I used first and couldnt figure out why it wasnt sticking to the tank.
right solder, but it's heavily corroded so it's really hard to work with. I made do.
used spare washing machine sheet metal like I always do. snipped with metal scissors, cut to size, dremeled with cut wheel off some excess, hand sanded sharp edges, hand sanded white paint off, smashed it a bit with a ball peen to round it. hand sanded the entire area on the tank for soldering, 100 grit.
cover that puppy in flux
pre-heat the area. it didn't do anything, was totally useless.
So what's supposed to happen is that I'm supposed to heat the area, and then shove the solder into that area and it'll melt on it from the residual heat. What actually happened was I stuck the gun to the solder and dribbled boogers onto the area. never done this before, slathered the area as much as I could because I couldn't figure out how to get the wrong solder off the metal the first time I tried. it worked.
a [sander] make me the [solderer] I ain't
this one was more tricky, didn't do a good job tbh
but there's at least some contact below the surface so that's all I care about.
good as old. all done.
added some bolts I picked up, but got the wrong size so getting new ones tomorrow. clutch lever housing, brake light, sprocket cover (sprocket cover are wrong pitch, right size)
ground down brake light screw because it wouldn't fit
sprocket cover (except wrong pitch bolts...) with more of that classic dirt that I keep finding in every oriface, WHY.
cleaned the gas tank. the works x7 shakes with 3min in between because of the bubble build-up, dump, completely fill water, dump, leaf blower, dump, heat gun, dump, heat gun, dry. still has rust. whatever, I'll do it again later.
old
"new"
petcock was full of dirt. wtf, who does this, for real. probably punctured a gasket in it while using a pick to fish out all the dirt, so it leaks now, might've before anyways. looks like im getting a rebuild/gasket kit for it, but that doesn't stop me from running the engine tomorrow with it. hands smell like gas, even after a shower. leaks from both the turny-part and the bottom-flowy-part. considering that it leaks from BOTH of those, that means it wasn't my fault. It's also missing the reserve filter screen. gasket kit costs $22, used petcock costs $30. no clue about sourcing a petcock screen, though.
I STG, if I find dirt in my cooling system, I'll be pissed.
also test mounted windscreen to cowl, had to dremel the well nuts in half, broke 2 wheels in my face (not very scary turns out), put the nut on the back and the well in the front with a plastic washer, seems like it works fine. allen hardware takes a M5x0.80 nut if I want to replace them for more strength, but I don't see a need yet.
PS, the threads on the other metal tab on the other side of the tank just don't exist. that'll be 'fun', by which I mean I'll fill the area with some steel stick and cut threads again. yay.