Yes I got the e-mail Im just brain dead.

 

My fan came on today for the first time for about 20 - 30 seconds. At the time I was doing lots of 1st gear crawling through slippery muddy stuff. The temp was in the mid 30's Celcius. Did I mention it was very slippery and [:@] i dropped it a few times

 

I think the radiator fan is more for several years form now when the cooling system has a little bit of scale built up, 30% of the radiator fins are bent over, and the radiator is full of dust and/or mud. That's when the fan will be needed.

 

I'm 90% sure the OEM fan will have to go. There are a ton of good 12v fan options that are much thinner and still move good air. I'll likely just remove it until summer and then rig something up.

 

Well, it begins in earnest. I got the tank on 3/1/06 and spent about two hours on the project last night. I'm now about 90% certain it will fit but there is more work to do.

Lots of pics will follow.

So far, the fan has been removed and all wire harness connections behind and along both sides of the air box have been removed to allow for repositioning of the two main harness groups that run below the tank. I think there will be enough slack to run these around the sides of the buldge that extends from the bottom of the new tank but some aditional wire length may be needed on one or two connections on the rear fender.

I think longer throttle cables are going to be required for a perfect install. There is room for them under the new tank but the stockers are not long enough. I have them shoved to the side now.

Also, the shrouds will need to be trimmed along the top edge a bit to fit the profile of the tank.

This is not going to be trivial but I'm willing to go deep into the mods to get 3.2 gal. of gas.

 

[sm=interesting.gif]

 

More tidbits:

First, I've had almost zero time to work on this in the last few days. I hope to get a few hours this weekend. I have had zero time to download photos but I will.

The tank is now able to sit on the frame in the correct position. This required removal of the two little hooks welded to the frame that hold the wire harness under the tank. These are not needed even in stock form so no loss. It's a very tight fit but it does and I'm confident I can make this setup work now! It looks killer too, even without the shrouds on yet. Now to get the wires to fit...

I'm going order the rubber tie down strap from the KLX300R to hold the rear of the tank down. The hook is on the frame of our bike so that's an easy fix.

As predicted way back when, the OEM petcock is different then the one expected by the IMS tank. I'm going to pick up a new one of those tomorrow. A variety of aftermarket petcocks will work.

 

OK, here are the long awaited pictures and an update on the IMS 3.2 gal tank install.

First, the two tanks side by side:






The tank can be had in black, green, or white. I chose white so I could see the fuel.

After you pull the side panels, seat, shrouds, and tank, you see the problem. The wires and throttle cables are in the way:



The task before you is to move these under the frame cross over and outboard of the frame rails on which the tank rests. To do this, you have to unhook about 10 connectors on each side of the bike near the air box and on the rear fender under the seat. The good news is that almost every connector is unique so reassembly is possible. The really good news is the right side requires no additional wire length. The left side is hanging loose as I write this so I don't know about it yet but I feel good about it because I moved the front of the left side over to the left (see pics) so it should have more slack.

Once you have removed a big gob of black tape from the front of the harness, you can split things apart and shove them behind/on top of the rad crossover hose. You also have to shove one of the relays that hangs on the frame downtube up on top of the right rad.

It sounds like way more work than it actually is. So far, it's just been tedious dissasemble, re-routing, and re-assembly.

Now, the point of no return (to stock, that is). You have to cut two hooks off the frame that hold the wires in their original position under the OEM tank. 2 min with a cut off wheel. They're not really critical and you could actually go back to stock without them.

After you've shifted the throttle cables to the right and re-routed the wires, it looks like this. Note fan is gone too:



Here's the tank setting in the correct position:



Here's a detail shot of how the wires and cables have to go on the right. Note that the tank bolts on the side do not line up. However, they're not really needed. The tank is very secure just sitting on the bike. The shrouds and seat will hold it but I've also ordered the rubber tie down for the rear from the KLX300:



More to follow. I have to figure out if I'm going to shell out $74 for the OEM KLX300 petcock or find an alternative.

Oh yes, and the shrouds have to be trimmed a bit:

 

Great job! You have more patience than I do. I'll struggle with it again at a later date. I'm sorry I forgot to mention the petcock, I thought you already knew.

 

Give us a pic with everything back together, very nice Todd,...Very nice.