I just completed installing the Givi tanklock mount on my 1200. I had this set up on my 5th Gen and loved it, however, there were a couple of complaints that I had about the mounting system itself. 1st, the bolts that were supplied with the kit were way too short, they only went in far enough to catch 2 - 3 threads. 2nd, when you tightened the bolts the metal ring would deform due to there being nothing for it to tighten down against. 3rd, there was a big hole that looked silly under the ring when it was all installed. So, how to build a better mousetrap with a little redneck engineering.
First, I obtained 3 aluminum spacers (.375 X .375 with a .141 or #6 hole size). The diameter of the heads of the factory tank bolts you are replacing are .390 so the .375 spacer fits perfectly in the recessed hole in the fuel cap. Since I do not have a lathe, one day donkey, one day, I threaded the hole of the spacer with an M4 tap. Next I took an M4 bolt, cut the head off, and screwed a nut on it. Next I took the threaded spacer, screwed it on to the bolt, and snugged down the nut so it would not turn. Now I chucked this into my trusty drill and used my bench mounted belt sander to turn down the spacers to the correct length that I needed, .349 overall length btw. With the drill turning the spacer and the belt sander running you can "turn" down the spacers with ease. You have to go a little at a time since there is no way to set a feed stop or anything. The .349 length gives the metal ring .001 crush against the plastic tanklock ring. The depth of the recessed holes in the fuel cap are .250 and the tanklock plastic ring is .100 - .101 giving us the .350 overall length minus .001 for the crush amount. That does not seem like a whole lot of crush space but I can tell you that you would pull the bike over before the ring slid around. Now, smooth up the spacers, drill the center hole of the spacers for the M4 bolts to slide through, and add a little rattle can black and you are almost ready to install. You do have to open the holes on the plastic ring where the bolts go through just a touch as you are now passing the spacers through that instead of just a small bolt. The factory bolts are M4 x 21mm. The bolts supplied by Givi are about 28mm. They need to be about 31 - 32mm to thread in the same amount as the OE bolts. Get some M4 X 35mm bolts and grind them down until they are about 31 - 32 mm long. Now you are ready to install the mount assembly with a little blue loctite on the bolt threads. Here is what it looks like now. A lot better I think and no deformed ring and the bolts tightened right down to the correct torque.
Attached Images
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