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The
Great BSA fuel tank fail
Sunday
shed wrap
October 5, 2025 – Guy 'Guido'
Allen
This is ridiculous. I pay you
money for a part, give you an address, and you
have it delivered. Hardly rocket surgery. Well,
then again it might be. And before you suspect I’m
shouting at clouds, this does have a happy ending.
At the moment I’m a bit in love with my latest (or
third-latest – whatever…) addition to the fleet: a
1968 BSA A65 Firebird Scrambler. That’s a lot to
cram into a T-shirt, or marketing slogan.
It’s a low-mile example with lots
of imperfections (say ‘Hi’’ to Ms Patina),
including the cosmetics on the fibreglass fuel
tank. The latter seems solid enough for the time
being, though the paint has been gnawed at by
time.
So my thinking was to put it aside and fit a new
steel item that looked close enough. India (bless
it) is the source for these things and I’ve had a
good experience with a similar idea for my
Triumph T160.
The latter has the small 13lt
American tank and I wanted an alternative for
longer rides, without spending a fortune. It was
ordered, looked very presentable, and fitted well
enough after a bit of fiddling with mounts and
steering stops. Great value. I’ve since removed it
and gone back to the original, as I don’t see any
more long-range trips in that bike’s future.
So, back to the BSA. As with the T160 I ordered a
new tank out of India, via eBay. We were about six
weeks down the track and I was still tank-less.
Without boring you with the intimate details, I
ended up having long email discussions with the
vendor and the courier company, both of whom at
first claimed I had refused delivery (?!) and then
suggested it had been delivered. They all went
quiet when I asked for evidence.
Fortunately, the discussion had
been via the eBay email host and was on record.
When I finally lost patience and (with some
difficulty) found out how to connect with a human
instead of a chatbot, eBay analysed what had
happened and sent a refund in about 24 hours. Good
service, though difficult to access.
Where does that leave the BSA? The new tank
failure changed the plot. Up till then the project
was on the back-burner, waiting for the steel item
to arrive. Now the plan is to work with what we
have and make the best of it.
I know it runs, having recently kicked it over.
And, surprisingly for a blind auction purchase, it
has decent and current tyres.
In theory there are four jobs to
do before I take it in for a roadworthy check and
then registration: fit the new Vape electronic
ignition, stretch and staple on the new seat
cover, change the oil, fit the DB-killers to the
currently wide-open mufflers. Okay, I just might
get it through the process without any of those
things, given a sympathetic inspector.
But why? There are times and other situations when
I’m happy to stretch the rules. In this case, I
don’t see the point. Fix it, enjoy, move on to the
next project. And, by the way, a sorted example
will always sell easier when I decide to set it
free.
What I end up with is a motorcycle which I’ll use
on rare occasion and it looks, sounds and feels
good. That will do, won’t it?
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