Kawasaki GT550 tank on kz440?

Hey folks, I was just wondering if a Kawasaki GT550 fuel tank would look 'right' on a kz440? It's actually a 440 LTD and the tear drop fuel tank that's on the bike wouldn't be needed for what the bike will end up as. The GT550 tank has a nicer more boxy look which is probably more suited to the overall plan of a cafe racer.

I appreciate the under side of the tank might not fit the backbone of the 440 frame, however this could be modified.

Thank you.

We put a Kz550 tank on a 400, so there is a chance it could work.

I'd ride that bike.


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It should be fine. I put the tank from a GPz550 on to a KZ440 LTD, also as part of a cafe bike project. You will probably want to trim the foam at the front of the seat; it will be a very snug fit otherwise.

Let me see if I can find (or take) a pic of the arrangement. I trimmed the heck out of the stock LTD seat and shaped it into the traditional bum-stop configuration. Now comes the hard part: making the seat cover. :huh:

There are two types of Kz550A tanks that look identical on the top but are different underneath. They can swap with each other on a Kz550, but not on a Kz400. The underneath of the first year (1980) 550 tank has less clearance for frame and coils. I think it was 81 and later that has more clearance and fits right on.
I'm not familiar with the Gt550 tanks, but I would assume they are similar to the later Kz550A and D tanks.

When we mounted the tank, the only mod we had to do was fit larger sections of rubber hose over the frame mounts., and then just add a little foam pad at the rear of the backbone. If you slide the tank almost all the way forward near the neck, it clears just fine. It doesn't seem intuitive to have it that close to the neck, but it fits without interference that way. If you let the tank sit back a bit, the tank will interfere with part of the neck and cause scratches. So for us, we needed to keep the seat and tank forward which held it all together nicely using just the front tank mounts.

It was very easy and probably only took us all of 20 minutes to do.

Thank you for the replies!