BOTM = Bike of The Month. I nominated your bike upon first glance. Frankly, aside from the obvious aesthetic appeal, what is really capturing most of our attention and favour is the attention to detail you've put into the build. Cleaning up one of these bikes is relatively easy given enough time and money, however most don't go to the extent you have in terms of refinishing bits.
Also, the modifications pay homage to the original style of the bike. Very CR750-esque in some ways. Keeping the Honda badges on the tank was a nice touch, as was keeping the original sidecovers and emblems. However, I wouldn't add the factory-like pinstriping you mentioned if it were my bike. I love the basic black look.
You can access the BOTM thread from the main forum page.
Ok, I hadn´t seen that thread. Of course I will accept the nomination!
I´m honoured!!
Thanks Dan, I'm very interested to see some pics of the underneath too, if possible? Cheers, Terry. 
When I first started thinking about stretching the tank I thought I would make a "cut & shut"-job.
I bought a beat-up tank and started measuring to find the widest and highest point of the tank an the gut it along that line.
That way one would be able to fabricate a "straight" piece of sheetmetal at the right length and TIG-weld it in.
Unfortunatly, due to the shape of the tank, the line that I wanted to cut along turned out to be very complex.
That also meant that the fabrication of the extensionpiece would be hard to get good enough tolerances on, to be able to weld a fueltight seal.
A few other problems like making a rear mount for the extended tank made me go back to the drawing board.
The solution came in bying another beat-up tank.
I left the first one untouched after cleaning the inside with citric acid and stripping the paint from it.
Then I cut the front end off of the second tank and carefully grinded the edges until I could place it over the rear of the first tank with at good fit.
When I was happy with the lenght and the tank was straight in all directions, I welded the two parts together.
This way I got to:
1. keep the standard rubber rear mount.
2. make no alterations to the frame to mount the tank
3. be able to switch back to the standard tank in a minute if I want to
4. not have to worry about fuel leaks through the welds or mess around with tank sealers
Then came the hardest part: to mould the tank into shape.
Spent many hours sanding......
As I´m a cheapo I wanted to do all the work myself and as I wanted to paint it gloss black I knew it would have to be perfect before I could hand it in to the paintshop.
The only real setback came when I did the last prepwork before paint with 800 grit wet sandpaper.
Suddenly the table a was working on collapsed and the tank fell 4 feet into the concrete floor!
Doh!!!!
Nothing else to do but start over again.... Didn´t laugh that night.
Anyway, that was how it was done and I hope this story answeres some questions!
Feel free to copy the method!!
