750 Sport restoration project

[Andrew2]

Today was a good day. I finally got the Sport out for it's first ride after I got her 10 years ago. It took a while but I lost interest in fixing bikes and just wanted to ride them so I left her on the bike lift and went riding my other bikes.
I'll start by saying what a great bike the Sport is.

First some fresh fuel.


I decided to leave the seat cowl off for now for two reasons. One, I need to get the seat to sit a bit lower so it's not putting pressure on the two tabs that slide into the ducktail and two, Italians must have small arses because it's a tight squeeze for me to fit on the seat with it on .

Anyhow, seeing as the tyres are 6 years old even though they have never turned a wheel I thought I would just cruise down the freeway a bit then turn around and come home. Wrong. This thing is great. So good in fact that I kept riding. In fact I took it up the local twisty pass and down the next one although at a steady pace until I'm sure the tyres will be ok. So far they are sticking well with no problems at all.



To say I'm impressed with her first outing in 13 years is an understatement. She handled much better than I expected with the 16" rims front and back. I will admit the roads were pretty good and I didn't push it at all but first impressions were great. It tracked beautifully through corners and held it's line fantastically. Besides tyre choice I'm not sure why you would want to change the wheels.

This was the start of the twisties so I hadn't tried to lean it over yet but by the end the tyres seemed to be ok. I'm still going to be cautious for a while though until I feel confident they're still good.


Now onto the throttle response. It was near perfect. Much better than my old Paso. The previous owner was a workmate and a motor mechanic and I knew he had played with the carb to get it running right and I must say he's done a fine job. It ran near faultlessly with only the occasional stumble off throttle around 3,000 rpm but so small that I wouldn't even mention it. No worse than some Delorto Ducati's I've ridden and far better than my old Paso which just goes to show that they can be made to run correctly. I was surprised to say the least.
The other surprise was how comfortable it was. I rode for 1 1/2 hours and could have kept riding. The suspension was firm and probably wouldn't be so good on rough roads but was fine on smooth stuff.

I can't wait to get these tyres over a bit more and see how it really handles

[HIGHWAY89]

Wow fantastic stuff, I'm super inspired right now. To hear the excitement and joy you're getting from your first run is just awesome, you've obviously owned, ridden and riding some really nice bikes so that just speaks volumes mate, happy for you mate, you've put the effort in.Also great to hear the Webber is performing well, nice to keep them original if you can.

[HIGHWAY89]

O yeah and Andrew she's looking pretty.

[Andrew2]

Thanks, I appreciate that.

I honestly didn't expect it to be as nice as it was. I didn't expect it to handle and carburate so well. I'm super stoked about it. I was going to put the Delorto's I had on my Paso on her but it's running so good that I'm not going to bother now.

There are a couple things that I need to attend to which you don't pick up until you do a test ride. I have to raise the idle speed a couple of hundred rpm. There's also an occasional clunk from the front end when I cross a large ripple in the road for e.g. I'll check the steering head bearing tension, maybe it's a bit loose but it seems to handle ok. I thought it may be the floating discs at first but it's more a clunk than a rattle.
The other thing I need to do is bleed the brakes front and back. It was funny when I left the driveway and had to use the brakes for the first time and she didn't want to stop. I had forgotten about the surface rust on the cast iron rotors and it took a while to wear it off .

I forgot to mention that the clutch is working great so far with the new seal in it. Hopefully it'll stay that way.

[nr.]

Blimey, that looks bloody lovely - I can only imagine what it must feel like to ride after such a lot of work. Nice one. Hope you sat in the garage with a cold beer at the end of the ride - I know that's what I'd have done!

[Andrew2]

Thanks NR, I certainly did have a beer....or two. I was so excited after my ride that I decided to ride around to show some mates that it indeed wasn't just an ornament that had been sitting on my motorcycle lift for the last 6 odd years and would actually run . And of course we had to celebrate with a couple of cool ones .

[Andrew2]

Well it been an interesting day. More to come a bit later but lets just say I found out why my brakes were crap and why she was clunking over some bumps

[Andrew2]

So what was wrong with my brakes. I thought it would be a good idea to bleed the brakes and that would fix the problem. Nope.
A little dirty but not too bad.


There's not much room to get the bleed hose and spanner on.


So on to the right caliper first with no issues.
Next the left and nothing. I couldn't get any fluid through.


My first thought was that the pistons had seized so off with the calliper. Not so easy with the 16" wheels. Once the pads were removed it came off easier.



The pistons were moving fine so it looks like like I'll be working my way up the system. Next, off with the hose from the caliper to the splitter.



A little air through the line proved this to be the culprit. No matter how I tried I couldn't clear the line so my only option was to dismantle the line and this is where I found the problem. A totally blocked fitting.


A little cleaning and a bit of a poke with a poker type thing ( a nail ) and all was clear again.
Put it all back together and a little brake bleeding and all is good again.

[Andrew2]

And now for the clunking front end. While holding on the front brakes and pushing down on the bars I could feel movement but this turned out to be the floating discs.

While standing there holding the bike and thinking I might have to strip the fairing again and check the steering head tension I noticed the top triple clamp bolt and the one underneath it were finger tight.
Mmmm, that's not right so I put a socket on the tension adjustment nut and it was loose too.


I nipped it up as best as I could and tightened the two allen bolts. That would have to do as it was getting late and I had a ride the next day.

[Andrew2]

I had a good ride with one of my historic clubs today. We had a good turnout.





The Sport did good. The clunk is still there but has never affected the handling in the slightest. The tyres seem to be hanging in there ok so next ride I'll see how far I can push them.



I'm prepping the DR for a trip away this weekend so the Steering head check will have to wait until next week. I might just give her a wash and run a spanner over everything while I'm at it.

[HIGHWAY89]

When you get to resetting / adjusting your front end, careful on the pinch bolt tension. I overdid it and found out the hard way that the top clamps are hard to get. I just felt my front suspension and there's a little clunk or something there as well, slight but there.

[HIGHWAY89]

Yeah I bought a second top yoke from a wrecker and it had the same problem and some waha

[Andrew2]

I'll keep that in mind, cheers.

Mines a fair old clunk over certain types of bumps. I'm trying to remember if my MHR does the same. It's hard to tell if it's suspension or something behind the fairing rattling. At first I thought it was the battery because it's only cable tied down at the moment but that seems to be held in pretty firm plus I've shoved some foam in there to stop it shaking around.
I'm surprised at how much the floating discs rattle. I don't remember the floaters on the F1 rattling so much.

[Andrew2]

Maybe someone will find this interesting.

The weekend away is done and dusted. It was windy and cool considering it's summer here.

An early start between showers and then a good 60 kms of dirt road towards Wombeyan Caves.

Little did we know what waited ahead for us.


The river was flowing well after all the rain we've had this year. That's my travelling partner Geoff in the photo on his T7.


But then we came across this


Not happy as there were no warning signs at the start of the road. So we moved the witches hats as you would and tried to proceed. Either that or we had to turn back and try another route.
Our first obstacle was easy enough to get around.


But the second one was impossible. It also had a digger across the road but construction work on the road stopped us in our tracks so back we went.

Our next route was also blocked by a washed away river crossing but after watching some four wheel drives come across we attempted it ourselves and made it through. Geoff has some video of it but I forgot to take photos in the panic hah. Anyhow it saved us backtracking yet again.

Some great views along the way.



Camp for the night.



An early start the next day and more views along the way.



The road was pretty skatey and badly corrugated in places from the rain but worth it.



Another obstacle on the way home.


And just in case you're wondering how deep this can get and how much rain we've had this was 50 metres down stream.





I'm betting he was getting worried when it started floating away. We decided to give it a go after watching car come through.

All up it was an interesting weekend and we thoroughly enjoyed it.

Now back to the Sport

[Andrew2]

I sometimes wonder if HWY and myself are the only ones on here??.