To Cheers and it's initials which make up some kind of nothing!
Whilst one doesn't like air in the petrol tank, especially when it's supposed to be full of go juice, there is another side to the equation.
All petrol tanks require a certain proportion of their capacity to be air when totally full. Apart from this being a legal requirement all over the world, as far as I know that is, the real reason is to allow for expansion when things get hot.
Most of us have experienced fuel dripping/flowing out of the little overflow tube at the rear of the bike in warm weather. This happens with the air reserve intact, if one takes out the modest air reserve then I hope I'm not around your bike in warm weather after you've filled up.
I myself run the Touratech 41 litre tank and originally used the BMW crash bars but I swapped over to the Touratech bars because they come apart for servicing on my 1100GS.
It was a case of drop the tank, to drop the bars, to drop the sump, to drop the oil.
Whichever way you do go I would suggest that you incorporate the snap connectors for the fuel lines.
I myself usually end up with a total of 35 litres of useable fuel. Over the years it works out like this:-
Solo, round town light throttle use and some short freeway trips generally 720 Klm's but once when pushed I did 775 Klm's and it was still running but hunting for fuel.
Solo, but bopping along with an average speed (push bike speedo/computer) of 100/105 Km/h about 650 Klm's
Two up, as above, 600 Klm's
Solo, with touratech panniers and pretty loaded, as above 620-630 Klm's
Two up, as above 580-610 Klm's
When serious touring is the go and I'm two up, I work on a safe useable range of 500 Klm's but I can go further obviously but It's not a good idea to ask the missus to walk for petrol, eh?
If you are going to purchase the Touratech tank then there are two BMW rubber parts that you will need to purchase, at least for the 1100 anyway. These are the rubbers that fit between the tank and the front fairing lower supports. The rubbers required are from the first R1100GS which used the plastic tank from which I assume the original fittings were used.
I only found out about these rubbers after landing the tank in Australia, and, eventually understanding the terrible quality German instructions
As an aside I now have purchased about 15 items from Touratech and in each case, the quality of the instruction sheet is abysmal. I can only assume that you people in the UK get better instructions and in English due to your having a local distributor. My wife is a well educated German (teacher in Germany for over a decade) and even she had difficulty sometimes coming to terms with their instructions
Mick.
