Gift horse - part 15

One of the many things this motorcycle needed was a set of new shock absorbers. That's right, absorbers plural, because this is still a wonderfully antiquated twin-shock model. In the 1980s BMW moved to single-sided swingarms that it has refined with various torque reaction arms over the years (to overcome the inherent issues of having a drive shaft on a motorcycle, dummies!) and never looked back. Anyway, where was I... oh yeah, we need new shocks. In an effort to save some money and also to use what we have, I thought about repurposing a pair of FAC (Fabbrica Ammortizzatori Cremona) shocks that I originally had on my Fastback, but that I eventually set aside as they were too short. Unfortunately, since the spring they use is also too short and too soft for the /7, that just turned out to be a very long detour to a dead end.

So, in the end I had to source a new pair of shock absorbers, and the winning ticket was a set of cheap and cheerful YSS Bravo. These are very basic but will do just fine for what we need this motorcycle to do; here's one next to one of the OEM items:

Sure, the original Boge shocks are very neat in that they have a built-in handle to adjust the preload, and we lose that feature here; but these YSS are going to work just fine. Installation was very easy and straightforward, thanks to BMW's rational layout of all components involved.

Gas tank repaired.

With a lot of skill, a cool head and a wink from lady luck, uncle Fester tackled a difficult repair job and welded up the gas tank.

The rear mounting bracket had cracked and the tiniest leak appeared as a result. This was very difficult to fix because of the limited room, but he got it done none the less.

Pressure test showed the repair was successful.

We need to get this bike back on the road soon, there are still a lot of little things to do and it's already getting late in the year...