Got the '87 running today. A little rough sounding, but we'll see how she is after I run a tank or two through her. The bike is a little too big for me (size, weight, and cc's) but maybe I'll grow into it.

 

She will grow on you, the size and weight are soon forgotten when on the open road. Run some fuel injector/carby cleaner thru her and I bet she will smooth out...enjoy!

 

What jarvid said!! You will get used to it, and they are great on the open road! Just take it easy until you get used to her.

 

What the other guys said

Take care when manoeuvring at slow speeds and using front brake.

Always double check that the side-stand is down properly, if it's not, by the time you realise, there'll be no catching her.
I speak from bitter personal experience

 

Great that it's running! As for the too big thing; They're a heavy bike to push around in the shed and *you can* come unstuck running out of steering lock when turning into a parking spot leaning too far and pulling in too quickly...*I did*

The cc doesn't matter because you control the power to the rear wheel (there's a lot of it btw) so just take it easy on the throttle for a while.

Just find a nice sweeping, quiet road and let the old girl just flow along nice and smoothly. Don't be freaked out by the size and weight! When you're moving, you soon forget all about it and when the weather turns crappy you'll be glad to be on something substantial.

I've never had a bike that feels so secure in storm conditions. There's just a feeling that it'll get me home safely.

Slow and steady to start with mate and you can't go wrong.

Enjoy!!

 

The 'cane isn't really street legal at the moment. She's bare of all lights and signals. So there's not much riding except in the 200 ft length of the apartment complex. She's got some serious rattle/noise to her at low rpms. Also some serious racket/rattle during startup. But sounds real good and healthy at higher rpms. The throttle feels a little weird. There doesn't seem to be much throttle control under 4k rpms, one tiny blip of the throttle and she revs up past 4k. The brakes pads are dragging, which makes 3-point driveway turns a serious pain the ***.

 

All those rattles are prolly your cam chain, these ol girls will keep goin for years with that rattle, you can try some 20w50 weight oil to quiet it down a bit, I recommend using motorcycle specific oil so as not to interfere with the operation of the wet clutch.

 

Press on my friend, and you'll be riding one of the best bikes ever made! I'd be concerned about the weight if I was riding mine around in an apartment complex and trying tight turns first up. The rattle is just the cam chain. The adjuster is hydraulic so it takes a while to work. Once at normal working temp it should shut up.

I'd start by sorting the brakes, that way you're less likely to drop it and loose confidence due to the weight concerns you mentioned earlier. If you haven't already, download the manuals from the forum, pull the brakes off and sort them out. If you run into trouble, sing out and somebody here will help you.

Sort that first and then get back to us about the throttle issues...there's lots of possibilities there, all easily sorted! You're much better to be able to stop properly than to have maximum power and crap brakes. I'd be reluctant to help somebody make their bike go, when it doesn't stop properly.

Don't be in a hurry and you'll be rewarded bigtime!! I bought mine with a view to trading it in after 12 months or so...that was in 2005. I'll never get rid of it, might get another bike as well some time.

 

It's an early form of traction control. All the clever electonic stuff happens in your brain and your right wrist.