A lengthy project, spanning too many weekends, has just come to a conclusion. A successful one we hope but only time and the African terrain will tell.

After a mixture of iron-fighting, plastic-fighting and even timber-fighting, Caroline's Serow now has a Yamaha Raid petrol tank, increasing the capacity from eight litres to almost 17 litres. Maybe still not enough for this journey, so I'm sure we'll carry an extra can or two somewhere along the route.

The Fatted Serow

The tank wasn't too difficult to fit, just needing the front rubber mounting moved a bit. Strangely, the Raid tank is shorter than the Serow one, yet has twice the capacity. So 'fat' is definitely the best word to use to compare the two.
But the original Serow seat doesn't fit too well with this tank, and the Raid one is wider so may be more comfortable.
And that's what took most of our design and construction effort. We needed to re-form all the seat mounting-points to take the new seat, with a new rear 'mudguard' constructed from some sheet aluminium to keep the mud where it should be and the water away from the air intake and electrics. The base of the old Serow seat performed this function but the Raid seat on its own doesn’t.

The whole thing turned out to be fairly neat, and the arrangement's strength and rigidity will be tested in real life sometime next year, all being well.
In the meantime, Caroline's husband Beau is a regular pillion passenger, so his weight, and local potholes, will provide a good preliminary trial.
We'll see.