I looked online but the advice seemed to just involve lots of patience and swearing, so I found my own workaround. This is my maiden thread giving tech advice btw, and tbh, as I am at best, a very average home mechanic, so please be gentle with me and especially, forgive me if this "hack" is well known and I am teaching Duacti-grannies to suck eggs..... The job... I have just changed the fuel filter on the S4R and the hardest part of the job was trying to get the black rubber sealing ring which sits between the plate that comprises the filler hole and breather pipes etc to re-seat when reassembling everything afterwards. The bike wouldn't run and as it had spark and compression, I suspected a fuel blockage. I'd already drained the 3" of what looked like gravy out of the tank and got the inside of it as clean as a whistle but it still wouldn't start. The fuel pump sounded healthy, so I ordered a fuel filter which arrived yesterday. The job was fairly straightforward, save for removing the plate underneath the filler cap which gives access to the filter, pump and hoses inside because the numpties who sprayed and wrapped the tank in the summer had been too lazy to fully strip the tank and had painted over the edge of the seal. However, careful use of a fresh Stanley knife blade did the job. Unfortunately, the black rubber seal was also a real bugger to reseat afterwards as you need about 4 hands to keep the sections you have seated from slipping off while working round the rest of the rim. I imagine that a new seal would solve the problem but I didn't have one to hand. Here's the workaround... Thankfully, I worked out a bit of a hack: 1. Take the black rubber seal off the plate all together. 2. Tap the plate without the black rubber seal (but don't forget the green o-ring) back into the hole with a rubber mallet, to just the right depth so that the remaining gap between the bottom of the plate and the top of the edge of the hole in the tank is only very slightly larger than thickness of the seal (it may take a few tries to get that gap just right) 3. Pull the seal over from the "wrong" ie top side of the plate, seat it on the edge and it will then be held in place by friction as you work round the radius of the plate, seating the seal as you go. 4 After it is all seated, gently tap the plate home with a rubber mallet working around the edge gradually so it goes in square. After about 25 mins of frustration with the rubber seal constantly slipping off the edge of the plate, this method took about 30 seconds and no swearing whatsoever was required. This applies to an S4R (steel tank) but I imagine it will work with any other Monsters which have the same or similar setup.
