Feedback
FEEDBACK
DEPARTMENTS
Readers are invited to have their say about motorcycles they own or have owned. Anything is fair game: performance, handling, reliability, service, parts availability, funkiness, lovability, you name it. Suggestions: be objective, be fair, no wildly emotional but illfounded invectives; include useful facts like miles on odometer, time owned, model year, special equipment and accessories bought, etc.
GILBERT TALKS BACK!
I’ve heard about Feedback and I think it’s time the bikes get to tell you their point of view. My name is Gilbert 3153 and I’m a 1970 350 Yamaha. I’m getting Smith to write this letter, and if I sound a little smug at times, I’m just telling it like it is.
Smith picked me up June 26, 1970. I was his second motor (he had a Kawasaki 175 before me), so I knew Fd have to take it easy with him, cuz he didn’t quite know his way around yet.
The first thing of note that happened to me was that I started leaking out of my countershaft seal. Lemme tell you, that was embarassing. I mean, reallyleaking oil—like a little guy. Hell, I was 350!
Well, a warranty trip got that fixed up and I saw to it that it never happened again. Meanwhile, Smith was riding the fenders off me. Five days after my birthday he had put 500 miles on me. Then he tells me: We’re going to Los Angeles!
Well, I’ll tellya, if you were only five days old and somebody wanted you to take him to L.A., how would you feel? But, then, the matter was outta my hands. I was still feeling pretty grouchy once we hit the road, but my seat started to bother the kid so much that he couldn’t ride me for more than 50 miles at a stretch. Twas then I decided he was all right, for somebody that green. The seat was really giving him a hard time, so I kind of made up for it by getting about 45 miles on a gallon. And I cut down on oil, too. I went about four tanks of gas on two quarts. He liked that.
When we hit the big city, well, like the man said, “Don’t drink the petrol and don’t breathe the air.” The combination of the two upset me a little and I whiskered plugs about twice a day for the two weeks we were there. But it never happened once we got back to the Bay Area. The round trip mileage was around 1400, and I’m forced to admit the kid and I enjoyed it. There weren’t many of me around and I was quite the center of attention.
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Once home, Smith and I settled down to about 6000 miles of a casual, freewheeling acquaintance, tooling around town and to school, and hauling it in the mountains, during which I showed no bad habits other than a tendency to only put out my best on brand new plugs. Around town I gave him about 50 on a gallon, and scrimped a little more on the oil.
Well, around my 8000th mile Smith got the idea he was gonna be a road racer and joined the AFM. We started racing, and it was only then he really found out how much he could lean on me. He fitted me with low bars and rearsets, and boy did I feel sporty.
Then he took off my oil pump and started running Blendzall in a mix and ported my barrels. That Blendzall is heavy stuff, I mean you really feel great when you’re on it, but the morning after my head felt all sludgy.
I couldn’t help what the clown did to my barrels, but I did my best in showing him the best handling at speed that he’d ever experienced.
He was scared at first to really let me get down to it, but as the season wore on I acquired two ungodly ballsy (or so he thought) ragged scrapes down the entire length of the bottom of each pipe. And even there I was perfectly calm. Never a flutter. Those other 350s wallowed and pitched through the sweepers, but I came through like I was on rails. And oh, those Mach Ills! Somebody oughta shape those guys up. If I ever caught a Mach III in a turn he caught my smoke on the way out.
What came next was one of the worst periods in my life. I was ported so radically that I started getting very temperamental. My metabolism was all messed up. I had to have 180 main jets or I didn’t get enough to burn and became very lean. I desperately hoped Smith would get hip to this, but he burned a couple of sets of pistons through me and demolished a set of barrels before I could get him to listen to me. He even had my crank rebuilt after all those pistons, but the rod big ends still had cross-hatching marks in them, except on the thrust surface. Hell, I coulda told him that....
I got very expensive to run, and I was impossible to live with. I couldn’t be let out on the streets anymore. While he was spending all his money on scattered top ends, I was doing my best to economize in all other areas. From the day he bought me to the day he stopped racing me, in March of ’72, I have consumed the following non-racing related parts—a brake cable, two stoplight bulbs, three chains (that’s his fault not mine), several tires (ditto last parenthetical pause), and that’s it. Really. I’m very proud of that record. Now I have 11,000 miles on me and that clown Smith is so fond of me he’s getting me some new stock barrels for my birthday, and, leaving the rearsets and lowbars on, we’re gonna hit the streets again and shoot for another 11,000. (Happy birthday, Gilbert.-S) Gee, thanks, kid. Sniff.
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I guess you’re all right.
Ahem. Well, now that you’ve heard it from my side, here’s Smith to get in his unworthy say....
“Gilbert is without a doubt the most intelligently thought out and welldesigned machine I’ve ever had. And during Gilbert’s lifetime I’ve had several more motors, but none have lived up to Gilbert. I think he and his ancestors at Yamaha really do have the better machine.”
Jerry Smith Santa Clara, Calif.
KAWASAKI 750 THREE
I felt that you might be interested in hearing from a Kawasaki owner who has some 8000 miles on his 1972 Mach IV. First, I must say that the bike accelerates better, stops better, and handles better than my previous bike, a 1970 Mach III. Both my wife and I love to ride, which partially explains how I managed to put 47,000 miles on the old Mach III. I only hope the Mach IV proves as reliable. So far, it has.
There have been problems. Because I purchased what was reputed to be the first Mach IV sold in San Diego County, the dealer wasn’t too certain about proper set up procedures (or so I assume). My first 750 lasted 40 miles before it seized up solid with no oil being pumped through the oil pump. Disheartening. The dealer gave me a new bike.
With 8000 miles on this machine, I’m already on my second set of right side engine cases (dropped it on an oil patch), second well-lubed chain, second rear tire, third set of spark plugs, and my third set of tachometer bulbs. Other than this, I have encountered no significant problems with the bike.
The bike performs Well. I’ve been to the dragstrip (Carlsbad Raceway) fou| times with the machine. I weigh 216 lb., so I don’t expect to turn exceptional e.ts. with the bike. However, I do turn consistent 13 sec. flat and high 12 sec. times. This is with no powershifts and a slip-the-clutch start. With a 14-tooth countershaft sprocket (one less than standard) the e.t. was better and the speed jumped to 110.8 mph with me on it. A 140 lb. friend managed a 12.70 e.t. (standard gearing) on the machine, his first time on it.
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When I think about it, I must be nuts for buying a bike like this, and then using it for long-distance trips. That’s just what I’ve done, though. The machine is passable as a tourer. I averaged 37 mpg of premium gas from San Diego to San Luis Obispo recently. This was done at a steady 70 mph, with occasional bursts up to 80-85. However, with my wife on the back, the mileage drops into the mid-20s. I can also get 25 mpg one up by really flogging the bike.
Low speed running is miserable. The two-stroke surging at steady, slow speeds is awesome. My old Mach III seems like a turbine by comparison. The bike does have very acceptable low end torque. It pulls from 3000 rpm very nicely, and starts easily from rest in second gear (if one is so inclined).
So there you have it. I like the bike very much, mainly because of its combination of power, handling, stopping, price and attention-getting aspects. It’s reliable, easy to start, completely oil tight and basically uncomfortable as hell for long trips. I’ve added 3 in. of foam rubber to the seat (boy, is it ugly now!), and I’ve fitted flat, Thruxton-type handlebars. I don’t like windshields, so the low, flat bars alleviate some wind fatigue. Besides, the flat bars look sporty.
Wave to me on the highway sometime. My wife will be riding her Suzuki 500.
Bob Ohrazda National City, Calif.
MORE ON THE BMW
After hearing and reading several complaints about the /5 series BMWs I feel compelled to answer them in part. As exemplified by Jeffrey Dean’s letter (Feedback, May, 1972), the complaints center around the fact that BMW has seen fit to reduce the weight of their bikes and raise the horsepower (heaven forbid!).
This is seen by some as abandoning the true forte of BMWs, namely touring. Apparently he feels that slow, sluggish handling bikes are better for touring
than one capable of staying ahead of today’s maniacal traffic. In terms of comfort, the new BMWs have given away a little to the old ones; but they have gained tremendously in their ability to carry two persons and paraphernalia at high speeds over most kinds of roads in comfort and safety.
Bob Bolin Boulder, Colo.
THE VIBRATOR
Perry R. Gilbert’s article, “Touring The British Isles” (April 1972), was very interesting and informative, but I must take exception to one statement which really stretches the imagination. I am referring to the part where he allegedly “gave our Triumphs a workout” by driving “a couple of hours at 80-90 mph.” Really! On the world’s worst vibrator? And without a fairing, yet? I’ve ridden Triumphs and now own what has to be the world’s smoothest touring machine, a Honda 750, and I ask who he’s trying to kid.
B.A. Szabo Lawton, Okla.
Now, now, Szabo, baby, don’t get violent. Before the Four came along the world got along just fine on Singles and Twins. The human body really is quite a resilient instrument.— Ed.
