Safari DRZ400 28 Litre Tank Cross Brace Mod

As good as the 28 litre Safari tank for the DRZ400 is, it has a fairly underwhelming cross brace. It is made of a lightweight alloy square tube and can bend with the most gentle of lie downs. One of the biggest design faults is that it is slightly pre-bent to clear the exhaust, this bend reduces strength on what is already a very lightweight brace. Once it is bent out of original shape it loses all strength and can basically be bent in half by hand.

This cross brace can be replaced with a material with more structural integrity. In this example I use 12mm X 12mm X 1.2mm steel square tubing and  25mm X 5mm flat bar for the tabs to secure it to the tank. The biggest thing to note with this design is that the 25mm X 5mm tabs are kicked out on an angle which avoids having to put a bend in the square tube, this way it retains the maximum structural integrity.