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Kawasaki Z1300 Soon after Kawasaki had launched the legendary four-cylinder 903cc Z1 in 1972, its product planners were thinking about a successor that would maintain the factory’s lead as a performance bike manufacturer. According to factory documents, a meeting at the Akashi factory in Japan in June 1973 established the guidelines: the bike would have…

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Vincent valve gear overhaul (pdf) My associations with Vincent engines have taught me several things. There seem to be more working parts in a Vincent than any other bike rye ever seen inside. The design of various aspects of the engine are as advanced as anything being used today. There are other areas where the…

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Moto Guzzi V50 restoration (pdf) For my money, Italian motorcycles have always embodied the essential purist design ingredients of a fine chassis housing a fine engine. In fact, when it comes to what motorcycling is all about, the Italians and the Brits are kindred spirits. Back in 1978 I had the delightful privilege of prising…

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Harley-Davidson XR1000 Special The Harley spat out one final sulky puff of smoke as I switched off the ignition and drew a deep breath. "You know, Dennis," I said reflectively. "That really is one truly great, great bloody awful motorcycle!" "A dinosaur with attitude," agreed Dennis. We grinned at each other. Allegedly, this is the…

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Laverda Jota (pdf) When the fastest of modern sports bikes are capable of nudging 200mph flat out – with brave testers equally capable of pushing them to their limits – it might sound absurd to recall that it wasn’t so long ago that 140mph was a speed beyond the wildest dreams of road riders. But…

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BSA A50/A65 overhaul service notes (pdf) Introduced in 1961 for the 1962 season, the A50 and A65 unit twins, with their egg-shaped engines of 500 and 650cc were called, unkindly by some, Unit Destruction! But this was almost always the way when anything new came onto the market, especially so in this case when they…

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BSA A10 and A65 fork overhaul pdf The BSA front forks were basically robust, reliable and obviously helped with the good handling characteristics that most lit SAs possessed. From experience gained in owning several different models personally and later with working on many in the line of our work at Bri-Tie, the A, B, and…

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Honda CB 750 For years motorcyclists in the UK have been told that such-and-such a machine would be too expensive to produce, or too difficult. The old arguments that usually begin with "Who wants a high-revving multi, when the good old single will last for twice as long?" no longer hold water. It is almost…

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Yamaha 350 YR5 I must confess that when we picked up the YR5 Yamaha, we weren't quite sure how it would behave. Because of Yamaha's racing development, there was a tendency to expect a really pokey performance machine; and the YR5 frame is a direct descendant of the works racer, so we were anticipating road­holding…

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