Well, since I had a free afternoon, I thought I'd tackle replacing the gas tank straps as described here by Bill Gas tank strap replacement - help, how to pull staps tight?

All went smoothly until I had to use vise grips to remove one of the rear nuts because it had rusted to the point where sockets or wrenches would either slip or not fit. Fortunately those 2 studs are easily accessible near the bottom of the tank, pointing down at about 45°. I had a similar problem with one of the front bolts, but it's recessed a bit and I could not get a good grip with the vise grips. I had to drill out that bolt and re-tap the hole.

The next step would be to loosen the 2 bolts holding the rear bracket up but again, the heads on those had were corroded to the point where sockets and wrenches wouldn't work. There also didn't seem to be enough clearance to get a socket squarely on and I could feel the threads of those bolts were very rusty. What to do? I decided to cheat.

I cut the new straps about 1/3 of the way from the front (but I don't think the exact location matters), drilled 5/16" clearance holes about 7/16" from the cut ends and bent the cut ends down at 90° about 7/8" from the cut ends. I then cut a couple of 3-1/2" lengths of 5/16" threaded rod and got some washers and nuts to pull the cut straps together after the ends were fastened in place. I tightened the straps to where it looked like the cut ends would have butted together if they were straight and until the bends at the front conformed to the tank. A pair of 3-1/2" bolts with long enough threads could have been used, but I didn't have any. The only down side is a loss of about 7/8" ground clearance below the gas tank. However, this is the only easy way I could see doing it when those upper bracket bolts are too rusted. I could have done the job with some heavy duty galvanized perforated strap, but the OEM straps were cheap. Here is what it looks like:


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1992 745 approaching 500k km