[dsn_klr650] yamaha rd's, nklr

[Steve Anderson]

Tim, Makes me reminisce about my old '76 RD400. I could outrun just about anything on the street. I put, or should I say survived, over 90,000 miles on that bike. Jeez it was fast, and for that era, with that very low center of gravity (can you say weightless heads?) handled pretty darn good. The engine was very easy to work on. I had to split the case, after frying the left side crank bearing, and got a good laugh when I noticed that all the bolts holding the case halves (top and bottom instead of left and right) had there tightening sequence cast into the case. I even rode that RD across the entire US!! Had to re-jet several times, the damn thing was never any good at handling altitude variations; at least it only took about five minutes to rejet both carbs, and it was very easy balancing them as there was only two (get the bike running the same on either cylinder, running one cylinder at a time, then back the idle down running on both). Wish I could tell you why I've had so much difficulty with left side crank bearings, I've taken three of them out in my motorcycling career (350,000 miles) on three different bike. I think I have a propensity to overheat bikes, living out here in the Southwest. Steve (remembering the "old days") Anderson

----- Original Message ----- From: Keep up with 750's? How about blow their doors off. All it took was a little porting and polishing, velocity stacks, 38 Mukini smoothbores, expansion chambers, and a little less air in the rear tire. The RD came out before the Kawasaki triples (500, 750) and the bike to beat was the Honda 750ss. Took a few pink slips before the word got out. Reminds me how much I actually miss my Yamaha R5 350...that was my first street bike Guys on their 750s couldn't believe how well I could keep up. I woulda like to have gotten an RD though, those reed valves woulda been sweet