The Sportster tank lift and rewire is a fairly standard modification for a Harley.
What better thing to do on a sunny Saturday arvo than pull a perfectly fine motorbike to bits and mess with it?
The plan has always been to form a bit of a bobber style bike with the new ride, and it was time to start making some changes. I had the lads in the steel workshop fabricate some Sportster Tank Lift brackets for me. Unfortunately, it turns out they were far too small, so I will get some more made up next week – but I still wanted to start re-routing the wires and shift the ignition coil and key.
As it turns out, it was all a lot easier than expected. The tank bolt came off easily and once I had the seat removed the tank swiveled up nicely and out of the way. It was only a matter of then cutting off the cable ties and re-routing the main loom. I have ‘temporarily’ shifted the coil over to the left of the bike – just using the stock bracket and attaching it to one of the engine mounts. I have heard reports of the bracket snapping due to the amount of vibration from the engine – but I plan to move the coil down to the front frame before long anyhow – so I am not particularly worried about it.
Also, the plan is to totally remove (what I feel is) the redundant key – you can’t start the bike without the pocket fob anyhow – so I want to just replace it with a switch. Easy enough to do. I headed down to the hardware store to pick up a bit of steel and some bolts and put together a temporary bracket for the tank lift. Although I kinda feel the tank is a little high, I might just keep the temporary bracket in place for a while.
There you have it – a Sportster Tank Lift – took me about an hour. I’m really liking the look.