Showing posts with label RPM Moto. Show all posts
Showing posts with label RPM Moto. Show all posts

Sunday, December 4, 2022

1985 Yamaha FZ750 - The Start Of A Restoration.

Honest, it followed me home...

There are still quite a few bikes that I want to own one day, mainly nineties sports bikes, a few really old bikes, and quite a few other odd ones that might just happen one day. One I've been after for quite a while, especially since seeing a lot of restomods on them, is the FZ750 - the half-faired, original version. To me, that thing is sheer beauty. 

When one popped up at my favourite bike breakers - Motogenn, in Burleigh, Gold Coast - I sent Paulo a text "Put my name on it! I'll take it."

Paulo insisted, "Come and have a look first."

"I'll take it!"

For those who don't know Paulo, he is an absolute gentleman, extremely helpful and who deals in mostly modern motorbikes. I've had several parts from him for the R1, amongst other projects, and his prices are the fairest around. Anyway, I popped over for a look, said yes I'll grab it, and came back with the money a few days later. She's gonna be awesome!

Loading it in the van was easy, Paulo had a decent ramp to get it in. It took two of us to push it in (it has no working brakes) and it just needed a good, confident shove. 

When I got it home, I had no such luxuries. I found a shitty old pallet that was nowhere near long enough and got ready to launch it on my own. Figuring this would end in disaster, I asked a neighbour to help me. She quickly, and quite rightly, declined but said her housemate, Corey, would love to. So, out comes old mate, barefoot and looking somewhat bewildered. I told him to jump in the van and hang onto the handlebars, and I would hold the back as it rolled down the pallet.
This would have been ok, had the pallet not given way under the weight of the back wheel which then left the bike jammed on its exhaust and on the edge of the van. Bugger! It just needed a good pull backwards to free it and, sure enough, with a good tug, we were mobile once more. 
And this is when things got exciting for old Corey. I didn't have much control after getting it moving and the bike shot out at great speed with Corey hanging on for grim death, straddling the front wheel, barefoot and quickstepping on a very steep, rough pallet. All I could think was we are going to drop this bike, but no, Corey hung on well and it stayed upright. He was bloody marvellous to be fair and, legend has it, he even had most of the splinters out of his feet by the morning.

Wednesday, January 8, 2020

RPM Moto Nerang — New Chain and Sprockets for the GS550E.

Suzuki GS550E — I'm attached to this little bike.
It's nowhere near restored or concourse, and likely never will be, but looks pretty good considering the condition it came to me in. I'm always doing little jobs on it, and enjoy the odd ride out even if the seat is as hard as wood.

The chain and sprockets were well worn, in fact the chain I was using came off my Gixer1000 years ago. So when I saw a NOS standard rear sprocket for next to nothing on eBay, I snapped it up (obviously a fifty tooth sprocket for a GS550 is not a common item now). The gearing on the 550 was way over the top before, and was fitted with a 43T on the back. I'd always thought it had the wrong chain guard on it because of the huge gap underneath, but that wasn't the case. Standard size was seven teeth bigger.



So now I needed a front sprocket and an O-ring chain to go with it. A quick look on eBay and there was a shop selling both, with different sized fronts if need be. I decided to go for a 16T to give the GS a sightly more relaxed time (15T is standard). The prices were superb, and with a little more investigation I found out they were actually on the Gold Coast.

So I popped in...