Pet owners look like their favorite pets. I guess my bikes look like me. A projection of my personality (many sides, meaning many bikes), plus the client input. Expresso is a spec bike. So I can do what I want!

The motorcycle trend is toward FAT. Fat everything: tires, wheels, front ends and gas tanks. But I don’t like fat gas tanks. They make the bike look heavy and destroy the speed effect that everybody is looking for when stretching the bike. I love rear ends muscled by fat wheels & tires, but I think it looks better when the gas tank is slim and stretched to the extreme. Fuel capacity is not my main preoccupation either. So, we are going to fabricate a one-off gas tank narrow, with a lot of arch, stretched as much as we can.

At CHC, we custom make gas tanks in 3 & 5-inch stretch for cruisers and choppers. In the fabrication room, they are laid down upside down on a bench waiting for the last cosmetic welds before being shipped to our clients. Vision of steel seagulls! We pick one in 5 inch stretch and check on the bike to see how much stretch we can add: 1 inch.

Our extension is going to be a “dry” extension, meaning no gas will be in this part of the gas tank. It would be of no interest to make it a “wet” extension because no fuel valve can be installed at such a low place: the petcock would interfere with the rear rocker box!

A Hot Match pop up gas cap is welded and then we do a fast priming of the new gas tank

A 16-gauge piece of steel is folded around the lower part of our existing tank, and then formed around the frame top tube, and then tig welded.

Another 16-gauge sheet of steel is U shaped on the top tube to create a 1-piece bracket with a 4-point mount system. A cardboard template is used to match the curve of the bracket with the lower curve of the gas tank.

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