My '73 Yamaha TX750. My first restoration.
This is my long term project that has been so close to completion at least twice, but still sits in my garage and not in the state that you see here.
I bought this bike in April of 2008 while I was still in school. I had been looking for a vehicle project to work on after a couple of years of watching the weekend project shows like the PowerNation series (I wish they'd do a motorcycle show). A car would be too much for my first time project so I went with a bike thinking I'd do a cafe racer. I found this on the Phoenix area craigslist complete for $550. I got it for $500 and brought it home. I managed to get it started within a couple of weeks of purchase and decided to do a restoration and blow it apart over the summer between my junior and senior years. I got through the summer with it most of the way done and ended up putting it away while I finished class. The 2009 summer was busy with a new job and the bike started going back together in 2010.
It has been fully disassembled three times and out back together twice. The last time it was together, whig is what you see here, I thought I was done with the restoration. As I was test riding it, I found I couldn't get out of second gear. After some troubleshooting I decided to take her apart again to rebuild the engine and that is where she sits. Things are looking like I can get to it as soon as the Ninja is track ready. I'm uncertain of what I will do once it is together. Part of me wants a classic to put around on. Another part wants to convert it to a race bike to race in an AHRMA race. A last one part of me wants to sell it for a better race bike like an SV650 or a brand new Yamaha R3. I especially think about selling when I see press releases for the new XSR700 that would give me all of what I like in a nice UJM look with the modern FZ-07 parallel twin engine complete with fuel injection.
Who knows what I'll do. I want to do the engine rebuild for the learning value of getting into the engine. I have worked on every other part of the bike with the exception of the engine so I feel this would be a great opportunity to do that. We shall see…
Blue
