Early generation Rupp Tank?

#1
I didn't notice this until I looked at the 68 XL500 tank for sale on EBay. Is this an early generation Rupp tank? Every '68 tank I have seen has a triangular plate mounted on the bottom to which the mounting studs are attached. This on has no plate, so the studs are attached directly to the tank bottom. Was this how the previous years tanks built?

68 rupp tank.jpg
 

capguncowboy

Well-Known Member
#2
I saw that. I had a tank like that on a really early 1969 Banchi a few years ago. I was new at the time and didn't realize it was unusual. I suspect they did these as a limited run before switching to the triangular plates, or after the triangular plates and before the bowl nuts. I picked up an early 1969 Scrambler recently that had the triangular plate on the bottom, so I'm thinking these tanks were first.
 

Ding Ding

Well-Known Member
#3
Always interesting to see the ways that some of these bikes evolved, especially the more popular manufacturers where design improvements were needed to maintain the integrity of the brand. Once the bikes were sold to the public, it didn't take long to start finding the faults that real world "testing" would produce. I have seen this first hand on the Arctic Cat bikes from owning very early production bikes to finding the faults myself, they had many upgrades/revisions in just a short 3 year production run.
 
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