Is the FZ1 a good bike?

[bentleyrb]

Hi Kurt, can you share some more 'before' photos as you work on it?
Rear chopped fender? I'd like to see a photo of it.
I believe I've seen it on other motos. Was it an attempt to make
the rear plate & brake light more aesthetic?
I'll keep an eye out for a rear fender in blue for the FZ. Thanks.

[whynot]

Hi Kurt, can you share some more 'before' photos as you work on it?
Rear chopped fender? I'd like to see a photo of it.
I believe I've seen it on other motos. Was it an attempt to make
the rear plate & brake light more aesthetic?
I'll keep an eye out for a rear fender in blue for the FZ. Thanks.

Hello, Paul. Yes I remember the day you rode off on the Bandit. Sometimes I think I shoulda kept that bike, along with many others, of course. Do you still have it?



And do you still have that Crown Vic?

Yeah, seems to be a trend, the chopped-off bare-ass look, but I will be replacing it with a full rear fender once I get the basics done, making progress, tires, chain and sprockets etc.

Noticed that you're using my Daytona race pic from 1967, thanks for the publicity. That's me on my Yamaha TD1B production racer. My 15 minutes of fame. I guess once you post something somewhere on the Internet, it's in the public domain.

Here's another, captioned, "WTF here comes that damn Aermacchi-Harley again catching me in the infield."

[whynot]

FZ1 information update --

So, for several weeks I cleaned and cleaned the '05 FZ1, and cleaned it some more, revealing a pretty darned nice bike, paint etc. quite good, no evidence of crashings, some small garage scrapes I'd say. New chain and sprockets, tires (RS4, I like 'em), forks apart and overhauled, carbs and tank drained and flushed, new fuel filter, clean and oil the K&Ns, NGKs, and so on. Then when I was ready for a first real ride, WTF, it wouldn't run off choke [angry face]. Crud came out of the #1 carb when I opened the float drain. I'm guessing there was crusty sediment in the float bowls that worked loose from the few miles of running and garage starts. So I had a friend experienced and knowledgeable in Yams pick it up, cleaned the carbs, and went with a 6-Sigma carb kit. Took a while, I forgot that people with kids are busy in the summer, Little League and such. Finally got it back a week or so ago. Starts and runs "awesome" as they say. I've put about 200 miles on it in three test rides, adjusting controls, gassing up, getting used to it. I guess I don't have to tell you this is a very fast bike, and it's for certain that I will never use all the power. Throttle response with the 6-Sigma mods is beyond awesome. Sitting higher than the ZRX, I have resorted to wearing my Daytona GTX boots, the ones with extra lift, that works. The suspension is great, fully adjustable, got it adjusted for myself. Will have to work on wind management, reading various forum posts about screen options. Awaiting response from Woodcraft on a packing kit for the Hindle can, gotta mellow it out a bit. [UPDATE Oct 17 -- Packing kit on order from Hindle Canada thanks to Tim @ Woodcraft. Should get here in time for winter project.] When out riding, the awesome suspension and awesome chassis give an awesome feeling of confidence and ... awesomeness.

More news later ... .

[dankatz]

This Daytona M-Stars are the best thing that happened to shorter riders. You can wear them for any bike you get! I don’t believe you get a true 6 cm lift - just in the back. That being said, they have saved me on bikes like the T7 where my 5’7” light weight stature felt like a problem

[whynot]

The little bit of extra height from the Daytona boots make a big difference, getting feet down and also just rolling the bike around, I have better leverage. Nice boots, too. The neighbors' house is quite close to my driveway, and with their bedrooms windows facing the driveway and with both couples (it's two condos now) working from home, I try to keep the noise down, so I often roll the bike the 50' to the end of the driveway and sometimes into the street. The Hindle kind of growls at idle and low speed, and I can hear it pretty good when riding with 33 db reducing earplugs. I'm hoping that a re-pack will tone it down some.

[whynot]

Update -- the Hindle packing kit came in from Canada via Woodcraft in less than two weeks. I got the can off and apart and re-packed it today. Getting the end caps off took a lot more "coaxing" (read "hammering") than I expected, but all done and no damage done. It sounds mellower, maybe not particularly quieter, but without the annoying rasp that the exhaust note had. Polished up the aluminum sleeve some by hand, will do some more. And keep riding til the salt arrives.