First ride yesterday. I didn't know that it was possible to have this much fun with my clothes on. Absolutely NOTHING on the road even comes close to the sound of a GT 750. The power is incomparable. The RD400 needs to be kept at 5000 rpm to make any power but the GT750 has good torque right down to 2500 RPM. Modern bikes perhaps have better power, better torque, smoother and so on. But modern bikes don't have that certain 'je ne sais quoi' and and they can't get it.
Some more detailed notes:
-I was up to '60' in no time--right in my neighborhood. My mind is calibrated in km/hr but this is a '72 and '60' is 60 mph. Oops!😁
-I put 4 liters of fuel in the tank because I was only going 30-ish km. I almost ran out of fuel because I went 30 miles. Oops again😁.
-I cranked up the oil pump output to provide a little extra lubrication to break in the bored out cylinder bores. For my 30-mile run I burned thru 200ml of oil
and had only put 300ml in the oil tank. Very un-cool.🙄 (running out of oil is a bad idea)
-The double leading shoe drum brakes are not as bad as everyone said. Not grabby at all & work well. The rear single leading shoe brake works well too.
-The Mikuni VM style carbs do require a strong grip to keep the throttle open. (this is because manifold vacuum tries to pull the slides closed). This isn't a
problem for day-rides around town. But for all day riding, it would be uncomfortable.
-I need to replace the cooling fan temperature switch with one calibrated for close at 200 degrees f, open at 180 f. I had selected a too-low switch setting (on
at 180degrees f, off at 140 f) so the fan was coming on constantly.
Next task is a check-over, and cylinder head re-torque and adjust the oil pump. I'll also make a little video to post on YouTube.
