Almost in tears

SO YOU THOUGHT YOU COULD CRY HUH?

Just read this little story


A little guy is sitting at the bar just staring at his drink for half an
hour when this big trouble-making biker steps next to him, grabs his
drink and gulps it down in one swig.

The poor little guy starts crying. "Come on man. I was just giving you
a hard time," the biker says. "I didn't think you'd CRY. I can't stand
to see a man crying."

"This is the worst day of my life," says the little guy between sobs.
"I can't do anything right. I overslept and was late to an important
meeting, so my boss fired me. When I went to the parking lot, I found
my car was stolen and I don't have any insurance. I left my wallet in
the cab I took home. I found my wife in bed with the gardener and my
dog bit me. So I came to this bar trying to work up the courage to put
an end to my life, and then you show up and drink the damn poison."

 

Had a similar situation with my gas cap. Key just didnt want to work anymore. Hammer and screwdriver took care of the problem. I was able to purchase a new cap from yamaha for about 20 bucks. They are still using the same style on some of their other bikes.

 

I have a CAA Premier membership (CAA = Canadian AAA) that gets me five tows of up to... I think it's 320km, roughly 200 miles. And that's good for all my vehicles, or even my friends' bikes or cars if I'm feeling generous. All that for the low, low cost of about $120/yr. That's pretty good insurance for my money and you get FREE maps!!

 

I WISH mine just had a screw-on cap. The PO had my bike since day one, and he was in the military. He had it crated and sent to Germany when he was stationed over there, and on the trip back it fell over in its crate. Didn't do any damage except for denting the tank apparently, so he had a new tank put on. My keys don't match, so I have to constantly try to figure out which is the ignition key and which is the tank key (okay, yeah, it's really not that big of a deal) when I really could care less about having a locking gas cap.

 

One simple solution may be to just file a notch or two on the fuel key then you can see at a glance which key fits!

 

Or, since you don't care if the tank locks, just pull the pins out of the lock. Then any key of the same blank will open the tank (I assume it uses the same blank as the ignition).

 

Or get creative and rekey the lock. You can do it yourself or have the locksmith do it, it's cheap enough.

 

Rekeying a lock is quite simple,
You simply pull the tumbler and then put the ign key in and file the pins that stick out till they are not sticking out........ done.

 

Not exactly! You could end up filing the wafer so thin that it will break and jam up the lock.

The best way is to take the wafers out of the cylinder and see if you can put them back in to match the key. If one is really close then file it close if there's material on the wafer. If it's way off, you may be better just to leave it out of the cylinder.

 

I was thinking of the method Nick suggested when I spouted off my answer, it isn't hard really.

 

The lock on my gas cap is broken so that anything (screwdriver) will open it. I have a second key on the ring that is useless other than as the "tool" to open the cap.

I was thinking along the lines of replacing the lock with just a twist-open latch. Works the same, just no key. Can't lose the cap, since the whole cap doesn't come off this way, and the lock on the gas cap is *usually* not necessary as others pointed out.

I've never disassembled the cap. How tricky would that be to rig? Would it be something trivial for a locksmith?

"When in doubt, do something new."

 

Well, I can say it isn't very difficult to rebuild the cap with donor parts if you have a mind to bring it back to life in it's original form.
I would feel somewhat naked if I were to have my fuel tank easily opened like you are suggesting. Never know who is going to mess with your bike.

 

Robert wrote:
"I would feel somewhat naked if I were to have my fuel tank easily opened...."
I wonder how many other people feel the same? I'll admit I live in a pretty law abiding city, but I've been riding for forty five years, very few of my bikes have had locking caps, I often park in the street, and in that time I have had one attempt to steal petrol from my tank. (This was during a petrol supply strike. They gave up when they realised it was premix two stroke.)
I spent many years teaching in very rough slum schools and nobody has ever put contaminants in my tank (although the paintwork on my car was attacked).
Have I just been lucky? Is this the great advantage of living in South Australia? What experiences have other people had regarding fuel theft and tampering?
I suppose what I'm really asking is, "Are locking petrol caps more trouble than they're worth?

 

I once rode my CBR 600 to work - pre-crash - and left it in the parking lot all day with the keys in it. Was still there when I came out. I work downtown.

If I can get away with that, I'm sure I can get away with a gas tank that doesn't lock. After all, the gas tank on my *car* doesn't lock.

The way the lock on my tank is right now, I'm more worried that I won't be able to get the blasted thing OPEN one of these days. I'd rather just fit it with a turning latch than a broken lock or a twist cap.

(Though now that it has been brought up, I'm actually not happy with the ignition lock either, since it doesn't lock at all. When I get a few other things solved, there are several ignition/gas/seat lock combos for sale out there. I could solve all three at once and get stock parts out of the deal. Until then, I'm thinking twist-latch cap.)