For various reasons the 750 has not figured largely in the motorcycle consciousness, its virtues hidden by a large array of sporting 600s and mega-muscle litre bikes. But a look at its spec sheet would show that it has a lot to offer. Any bike that produces 105hp and only weighs 485lbs has to contain a hell of a lot of potential fun. Yamaha also build their five valve per cylinder motors to a very high standard - they can be thrashed long and hard and still come up shining.
First impressions, then. Even at low speeds the bike feels very light yet reassuringly stable. Not quite so easy to chuck around at low speeds it compensated by feeling more secure at slightly higher speeds. The grip from the almost new and commendably fat Metzs felt most reassuring. Up to 5000rpm, power was adequate rather than startling, from that point on it -builds up rapidly, until by 8000rpm the motor was really into its power band and my first attempt at a second gear roll on had my neck snapped back, arms stretched out of their sockets and the tacho needle in the red before I had a chance to knock it up a gear. Oh yes, this was going to be fun!
The one bug-bear with the FZ (and FZRs come to that) is the gearbox. Mine was a particularly notchy item between second and third, and third and fourth, although I have never actually missed a change. The GPz500 box had never been perfect, but five minutes on the Yamaha soon convinced me that I had been over critical of the Kawasaki. A change to high quality oil helped a little, and I find I have to do this every 1000 miles to maintain an acceptable change. I talked to one FZ owner who said his gears broke up on him, but the bike did have around 92500 miles on the clock!
The FZ does not share the ridiculous race replica riding position of the FZRs, it offers a very much more comfortable compromise. I soon found that it was nearly as good as the GPz, only a little wrist ache after an hour of charging around London spoilt the picture. Just like the Kawasaki, the screen and fairing offer inadequate protection in bad weather, although I was left quite relaxed after extended autobahn cruising at 120mph - even at that speed I kept getting buzzed by huge German autos. One race saw the speedo hit 160mph, although in reality top speed of the FZ is a mere (mere!) 150mph.
The seat was not perfect. OK for about 150 miles in a day, the one time I did 600 miles, the foam flattened out and both my thighs and backside ended up extremely sore. It was difficult to stand up straight for half an hour, although I soon recovered and by the next day was raring to go again. It's a little buzzy around 70 to 80mpbh in top gear, which in the UK is rather annoying, but beyond that it smooths out nicely. Even at its worst, vibration does not intrude to the extent where it produces any bodily effects and not one bulb, in 20000 miles over eight months, blew.
Pillion comfort was good, but then my girlfriend is on the small size and does not end up perched above me despite the stepped seat. The one time I took a taller mate on the back, he was perched far above me and had an adverse effect on the handling at low speeds. A slight disinclination to lean over meant that some corners degenerated into a wobbly mess.
Handling is better than the GPz. Just as easy to chuck through corners it has even better stability than the Kawasaki. I felt I could take my hands off the bars at 120mph and not fear the slightest weave. Admittedly, I never did do that, but after tiding various British bikes as well as many Japanese multis, I can say that the Yamaha is up there amongst the best. Considering that the power output is so high, even whacking open the throttle when well leant over in a bend, in say second or third, fails to throw the chassis.
Suspension was a reasonable compromise between tautness and comfort, although it could be a bit more biased in favour of the former to my mind, for at times a series of closely spaced bumps would not allow the suspension time to recover. Under extreme braking from the twin discs there was a bit of fork twisting but even this gave little hint of upsetting the chassis. Under extreme, mad, insane tiding, taking bends much faster than was really possible the front wheel would start to walk away from its proper line and the bike gave the impression that at any moment it was going to fall flat on its side. Most people will never experience this, it only appeared when I was chasing a mate on a hopped up GSXR1100 through some particularly fast bends. It might be possible, by changing the tyres or altering the suspension to eliminate this trait, but it was such a rare occurrence that I never bothered.
With 25000 miles on the clock the rear shock is well shagged and lets the bike pogo a bit over rough going. Rather like an old Ducati 450 I once had the misfortune to own a long time ago, despite all the movement the bike sticks to its line as if it was glued to the road. Impressive. The front forks work as well as when I got the bike. Much to my surprise, despite not stripping the mono-shock linkages down, there is no sign of wear there or in the swinging arm bearings. In fact, the only thing to let down the rear end of the bike is the disc brake.
Perhaps I had been spoilt by the rear drum brake on the Kawasaki, which never required any attention and worked perfectly. To start with the disc felt wooden and in the wet I did some quite spectacular skids when I applied too much pressure in hurried stops, which reminded me of my early attempts at mastering an FS1E. Luckily, the FZ always had a greater tendency towards stability than falling over, coming back into line the instant pressure was released on the rear brake lever.
Like a good little boy, I drained off the brake fluid and carefully bled the system of air after I bunged some new fluid in. This improved the level of rear end braking to that achieved by a sixties C50, just, but after a week the lack of feedback returned and so did the lurid rear wheel slides. Luckily, stability under just the use of the front brake is good so little use was made of the rear disc; I gave it up as a bad job. Perhaps thanks to the low centre of gravity engendered by the engine layout, transfer of weight under heavy braking, using just the front discs, was minimal.
After about 4000 miles the whole back brake assembly had seized up solid. This might be acceptable on a 50000 mile CX but on a nearly new bike with less than 10000 miles on the clock was totally ridiculous. A lot of swearing allowed disassembly of the caliper. It was just a matter of cleaning up, greasing and reassembly. Even though I thereafter used the back brake a couple of times on every occasion I took the bike out, after less than 5000 miles the caliper seized up again. I just left it there to rot away after that - I began to understand just why the editor expends so much fury on modern bikes equipped with rear discs.
The FZ gets its handling and stability from a relatively old fashioned rectangular section frame coupled with a low centre of gravity resulting from the top half of the engine being inclined forward. I have no objection to this type of frame when it works as well as it does in the FZ. I see no point in alloy frames as they are invariably built of such a huge section that they weigh more than the steel chassis. After all, Dresda were knocking out perfectly adequate tubular steel frames that helped knock as much as 25% off the mass of standard Jap 750s of the seventies.
Japanese technology and knowledge has advanced over the years to the point where they can mass produce steel frames that are a match in terms of strength and weight to what the special builders are making. It will be some time until the best of alloy frames will match the best of steel in terms of strength and mass in production machines. The welding is still pretty naff, though.
The Yamaha engine has been a paragon of reliability. The carbs have stayed in balance, the spark plugs have not been touched, the ignition has never produced a hint of misfire and the valves have not been altered in 20000 miles - the bike had a full service just before I bought it and I’ve checked the valves twice, both times all clearances were within limits. Despite the high revs, the valves are so light that they must produce minimal wear. The guy who blew his gearbox reckons he was still on his original camchain, so this is one tough cookie.
The trick five valve heads are not so clever when it comes to fuel economy. It’s quite easy to achieve 50mpg and still have a lot of fun. Very fast cruising gets it down to 40mpg and one particular 100 miles of total insanity, which saw the bike sandwiched between two Porsches, returned 33mpg but the speedo never went below 145mph. I averaged 48mpg over the 20000 miles, with a best of 62mpg when I took a very nervous girl on the back for a 200 mile run - she grabbed hold of a very sensitive piece of my anatomy and squeezed hard whenever I went above 30mph!
Starting was always reliable but a trifle cold blooded from an early morning start. The fuel consumption never made me think of the bike as particularly lean in carburation, but from cold it refused to idle at 1000rpm for at least a minute, the tacho hovering around three grand with the choke on and yours truly wondering how long the cam bearings would last under such treatment. Three times the engine refused to start when still hot, but once it had cooled off came to life at the first press of the button.
Tyre wear was terrible. I had thought the GPz500 bad enough but getting only 3000 miles from the rear Metz, admittedly under hard use, was just not acceptable. The handling degenerated rapidly if you tried to use the tyres with less than 2mm of tread on them, the bike doing a full tilt 120mph speed wobble that I only survived by whacking on the brakes. Yes, stupid, anyway, to ride a bike on worn out tyres but my finances had entered a period of, er, consolidation. Rumours abounded of the bike not handling well on cheap tyres so I fitted a new set of Metzs to placate the gods.
The O-ring chain lasted 10000 miles but was an extreme pain to fit, lacking any kind of split link.This is not a criticism of just the FZ, but this did nothing for either my temper nor my bloodied knuckles. I was shocked to find that the pattern O-ring chain I fitted only lasted 6000 miles.
Electrics were trouble free except for the battery, which became temperamental after only 15000 miles; replacement cured the problem, albeit expensively. The machine is equipped with a neat set of easily readable instruments, including both a temperature and fuel gauge. Unfortunately, the latter, at 21500 miles, decided to go crazy and rather than give an indication of the fuel remaining, it flicked back and forth across the gauge in tune with the rev counter. This was no great loss, as it had never been very accurate. A few thousand miles later the neutral indicator failed - this did matter as the gear selection action was so vague that I never had a clear idea of whether neutral was in fact engaged.
The overall appearance of the bike was pleasing to the eye but ruined by dreadful choice of graphics and colour. I had my bike resprayed by a mate in the auto trade, BMW cream white. I find riding a white bike with a white helmet a great safety aid because the car drivers often think you are a member of the police force and shift out of the way; instances of drivers attempting homicidal manoeuvres become minimal.
Paint finish varied from reasonable to excellent. The GRP crazed mildly around its mountings, the black exhaust paint peeled off (after 20000 miles) but the frame paint looked as good as new, although I did spend a couple of hours every weekend polishing up the beast. The wheels were commendably easy to clean after some bikes I’ve owned, although I had no idea how the insides of the hollow section wheels fared.
By the time I sold the bike, with 25000 miles on the clock, the twin front discs looked suspiciously thin and howled under usage, I had to repair a crack in the side panel, the gear change linkage was so loose it was impossible to engage gears at times, the clutch was showing signs of slip under extreme stress and both speedo and tacho simultaneously stopped working.
These, combined with sudden financial disaster, meant the FZ had to go. I had enjoyed almost every mile I had done on the bike, been sent to the heights of exhilaration by its handling and acceleration and impressed by the excellence of its engine design. But the running costs were killing me, I actually had to leave the bike in the garage at times because I could not afford to run it.
I sold it at a mild profit - it went very quckly, a matter of hours after the advert appeared (although, funnily enough, I only had one other call) and decided to go back to my Suzuki GS550 Kat which had been sitting, somewhat malevolently in the garage, and use it with the money from the sale to escape my creditors by heading for Europe - another story that you'll read elsewhere in this rag.
Al Culler