After a few short rides to make sure everything was working reasonable well, I took the bike for a longer ride that included a mix of back country roads and 60-70 MPH freeway driving. The bike did well.
Here’s a summary of what I discovered.
- The gearbox takes some getting used to.
- The bike handles well, and is quite comfortable at freeway speeds
- There might be a small oil leak on the push rod tubes on the left side. Not too much of a surprise.
- The front bearings ran nice and cool.
- The rear bearings were slightly warm to the touch after many miles of 70 MPH, but I had also just used the rear brake.
- The high-beam indicator doesn’t work
- The neutral switch is working, but the light shows symptoms of a bad diode. The light comes on when you pull in the clutch which is not helpful when you’re trying to find neutral!
- The turn signal beeper works, but only when the bike is in gear, the clutch is out, and the RPM’s are up (further evidence of a weak charging system).
- The odometer is not to be believed!
When I bought the bike, the odometer read 74,833. After what I was sure were short test rides, the odometer read 75,013. Near the start of today’s ride I reset the trip meter when I bought gas. At the end of the ride, the trip meter, which I checked against mile markers, read 69 miles. The odometer is now at 76,252, which if correct, suggests that I rode more than 1200 miles in a couple of hours.