Sorry mate but the XS 750 was a rocksolid tourer, some problems occurred in the mid cylinder bearings when driven hard with low oil. No chain layout made the XS a great ownership choice!
@@bikerdood1100 Been in the motorcycle industry all my life. Never heard of ongoing problems with the Xs750. And heard about problems with other bikes daily. How about the 83 GS850 with the poorly cast and finished engine cases? Puddles of oil on the showroom floor. Almost all needed the entire engine swapped out. Suzuki lost a lot of money on that bike. I was in motorcycle dealerships for last 40 years. There WERE problems. You did not list any of them. Where have you been?
The first versions of the XS 750 had it’s share of problems. Not enough oil available in the sump made the conrod bearing run warm. From the introduction of the XS 750 E was this corrected, and the world had another solid tourer. The XS 850 was the crown of the juwel - and only lasted two seasons. 🤷🏼♂️
I was a Yamaha dealership mechanic in the 70s when the yamaha 750 showed up. The 750, and the 850 triples were notorious second gear eaters. One of the mechanics I worked with at that Yamaha shop did so many Second gear replacements, that he actually figured a way to do it through the clutch basket cover without removing the engine from the frame and splitting the cases.. During those years several Yamaha’s had weak second gears… The Yamaha venture 1983 1984 in 1985 had second gear failures, even the Almighty FJ 1100 had a fragile second gear.. I know many people that wouldn’t consider buying a used Yamaha , 750, or 850 simply because of the nightmare second gear failures.. in 2015,i spotted a 1977 Yamaha 750 triple sitting in the back of a man’s garage as I was sitting at a redlight.. I yelled over to him, would you consider selling that motorcycle?. He said possibly..He had bought the bike new in 1977. It had been sitting in his garage unused since 1986, at least that was the newest year of the registration sticker on his license plate.. I convinced him to sell it to me. I did the normal resurrection procedure, tires, battery, clean the carburetors, clean the fuel tank, rebuild the petcock, change the oil, flush the brake fluid, treat the seat with lemon oil before sitting on it so it would not crack, clean the ground strap connection to the frame.ect.. I ran a batch of clean motor oil through the engine till it got hot.. I drained that oil over a powerful magnet to see what came out with the oil… The usual bits of clutch fiber, bits of grit, gum, soot, lots of non-magnetic particles probably from the clutch basket, the normal amount of magnetic material stuck to the magnet, nothing unusual.. I considered keeping the bike for a while because I always liked how the triples felt at low RPMs. They had a lot of grunt for their displacement. but once I got it running, new tires, carburetors clean and in sinc, no bad vacuum diaphragms thank goodness.. I took it for a long ride that ended up being a short ride. I was very disappointed at how Stone Age it felt. I loved the look because it had the original maroon gas tank and side covers and they were in very good condition as was the seat. Everything was original on this machine. It looked great, but it was old,, The feel of the controls and the switches, the feel of the shifting, the feel of the brakes, the feel of the suspension, the way it tracked over bumps, the way it felt in slow speed maneuvers, it’s time had passed. I had become tainted/spoiled by modern motorcycles.. The same way I had become spoiled by my Moto Guzzi Norge .. I love Guzy‘s. I have already had four of them since 1979 and I keep them a long time. But after having my Norge, I tested an old SP 1000 guzzi that I used to have. And it just felt like a model T car compared to my Norge. So I didn’t buy it. I was also a two-stroke fanatic back in the 70s. I road raced motorcycles, one of them was an RD 250 that I had won six championships on, two times national champion..I still have my muti championship winning machine sitting in the corner of my garage getting it’s well earned rest. But I located another one that was sitting, and I have enough parts to keep one running for the next 500 years including complete engines. So I bought this one that just needed a few things to get it up-to-roadworthiness. I put my KONI shocks on it, my clubman bars, went through the carbs and suspension, and when I took that out for a ride after working on it. I wondered, how the hell could I have ever ridden this slow poke.. it was running correctly, it started right up, it would idle at a very low RPM so the crank seals were good and the compression was good. It was in time, I backed the oil pump down because they were horribly rich from the factory, I put the guard on the advance ramp on the oil pump that the 1974 RDs did not have. It just felt like I was riding on a playground sawhorse. It would redline every gear like it should, it didn’t have a broken reed valve or an air leak.. it was just slow. They only had 28 hp, the 350s only had 38.. it was also very noisy even though the stock baffles were in place and the airbox was intact with the stock air filter and the lid on which is how they run best. I had forgotten what an air cooled to stroke sounds like with all that piston rattle. It didn’t rattle anything like the Kawasaki 500 triples with their wrist pins on the center of the piston which promoted piston rattle, but it still was some thing I hadn’t heard for decades.. I knew immediately I could not ride this thing after having had better. At the time I resurrected that RD, I was riding a BMW K 1200 LT, a Suzuki V Strom 1000, and a Moto Guzzi V 11 sport.. so the Yamaha XS 750, just like the RD, just like the Kawasaki 500 triple i brought back from the grave,the yamaha XV920 RH (chain drive) i resuscitated. I could not go back. Nostalgia is one thing, but the performance of nostalgic motorcycles is disappointing.. but I recently made a step backwards slightly. I had a BMW K 1200 LT with ABS brakes. I experienced ABS brakes on a gravel downhill road. They did not work at all on that gravel, nothing. So I got rid of that machine to go to something that had basic brakes..My moto guzzi Norge also had abs breaks but there was a difference, you could turn them off at the push of a button and just have conventional brakes. That’s why I went from the BMW to the Norge.. but I wanted another big super Turing machine so I bought a Honda GL 1800 Goldwing… have you ever changed the air cleaner on a GL 1800 Goldwing??? that is a five hour job in a Honda dealership at $125 an hour. I did the job myself because I thought that was ridiculous. But having done the job, that’s just about right. Everything on the Goldwing was buried. The thought of having to do a clutch or alternator or water pump or somethings serious to repair on that Goldwing made me get rid of it. It was a perfect machine, but it was just so difficult to even get at anything to work on it to do maintenance.. so I went to a simpler machine that I have already had two off and now I’m on my third Yamaha venture. A 2008 royal star venture that I can get to the starter, the alternator, the slave cylinder for the clutch, the water pump, and the clutch, without removing any plastic. I can practically work on all of those components using just a tool kit if I had to hit the side of the road. so as much as I am not in love with nostalgic older machines. Going to machines with ABS and traction control, having had a sample of that, I went backwards to something I could service so I would not have to marry the dealer.. I recently retired. I had eight motorcycles today I retired. Now I’m down to just two, because I want to get my 1958 mga that I have owned since I was 15 years old back on the road.. I had a two week body restoration paint job, and the engine rebuilt in 1974, and then I put it in my mother’s garage and never drove it since. I do turn it over with the hand crank to circulate the oil, and I had pulled the spark plugs out and squirt oil in the cylinders every once in a while to keep the bores from rusting .. I have it covered and sitting on blocks in my heated garage.. I drove that car all through high school.. I have had my experience with Lucas electrics, starters, voltage regulators, positive ground.. but I’m looking forward to it after 108 motorcycles - ( so far) if you ever see a Yamaha XS 750 or 850 for sale, run the other way almost as fast as you should run from a single mother that says hello to you…Buy an XS 650 instead, just make sure the ground strap from the battery to the frame has a good connection or it will use the entire wire harness as a ground and melt the wire harness eventually.. of course I was a mechanic when these Yamaha triples showed up, and we only saw the ones that were having problems which was a very short list, mainly second gear.. The engagement dogs would round off, and then next thing you know it’s missing shifts and jumping out of gear when you hit the gas and let off.. we started telling customers to baby that shift into second gear and remember to take your foot off the shift lever completely after every shift. They never made it to the top of the drag racing chart specifications because they have a shaft drive. A chain or belt returns 98% of the energy between the engine and the rear wheel. The best shaft drives or in the 85% return range. Then there’s the shaft final drive housing itself which hampers suspension compliance. When you’re on the gas, the suspension does not want to compress, pinion gear is trying to climb the ring gear. Plus having the power flow change direction 90° two times steals a lot of power. You will never see a Shaft drive MotoGP machine from a factory that actually wants to win.. from a maintenance standpoint, shafts are the way to go, but not performance. You’ll never see a serious competitive motocross bike with shaft drive either for that reason. Honda tried fluid drive and they had machines out there being tested back in the 70s.. Yamaha actually had 2 Wheel Drive, and so did Rokon.. another issue with shaft drive problems or limitations is, you can only get 8° of rotation out of a u joint.. I don’t know how many degrees a modern motocross machine swingarm travels, but I would not be a bit surprised that it’s close to 30°. You can have course have double U joints.. but you’re never gonna come up with anything better than a chain/ belt for efficiency and suspension compliance
Suzuki...GS650G...GS850G...GS1000G...GS1100G All shaftdrive all 2nd gear eaters. 9 YEARS as a courier telling my boys get XJ650 or XJ750 if doing the long hauls we did and CX500 for city. GT550 or GT750 Kawasaki ate timing chains and cracked frames.
I was a Yam mechanic back. In the 80s . Had a beautiful Z900 A4 at the time ❤️ Some years later I bought a full power VMax ……..guess what gear failed 🙈
My XS750 was faultless. Never let me down in 27000 miles. I went on to the 850 and it was even better and did 35000 miles. Zero problems. Maybe I just looked after them.
It’s often the way with these things I wonder I owner care doesn’t play s big part,. An engine with poor oil supply issues will survive for years with proper care
My first street bike was the silver and blue XS750 with every touring accessory and many aftermarket accessories. I was a teenager and the envy of all my friends. Lived in Daytona Beach and tourists wanted photos of it all the time. I wasn’t great on maintenance but the bike was flawless for the 17,000 miles I put on it in 4 years.
When Yamaha came out with the XS750 in 1977, i was 17 years old auf i always wanted to own one. 45 years later, in early 2022, i am 62 and purchased my first XS750 with 110k kilometers on the odo. We traveled together through Germany, Czech Republic and Poland. Only minor issues, caused by the age of the bike. It is a perferct traveller, very reliable, relaxing sound and invits you to ride with moderat speed and enjoy the trip. Low fuel consumption and the 24 liter tank takes you 400-500 km. In comparison with my 87' XJ900 and my 95' TDM850, the XS750 is always a adequate choice for the next trip. I hope to ride the bike another 6000 km this year. I will not sell the bike as long i am able to sit on a motorcycle.
34 bikes here My XS750 had no problems BUT it was one of the most boring rides...Flat power ...heavy....Dull....In isolation maybe...but thats like Shreks girlfriend cast-offs!!
Fantastic, the seed was planted in the mind and finally came to bloom 45 years later, that's remarkable, true love never dies. A TH-cam video on the subject of buying bikes we yearned for would be a major success. Well done Michael.
Thank you for giving hope on restoring my xs750 special and turning it into a hard tail chopper, it's my first bike and I hear nothing but good things about triples.
Had an XS750 Yam in the early 80's - it was the one with the larger tank similar to the 850. Absolutely loved it but 'marital issues' forced me to have to sell it. I loved the styling and thought it handled well, and I loved the shaft drive. Loved the sound of the 'three' when pushing on. Wish I had it now (in my 70's!). I would hanker after the Sunbeam, now but finances would preclude me having one.
A friend of mine had one and I recall how, under acceleration, the rear of the bike lifted up as well as the front due to the torque from the shaft drive.
Worked in Yamaha shop in Southern California in the early 80's l don't recall the Xs750 models having to many problems even in the hot conditions common in Socal. The Xs850 could seize the center cylinder in hot conditions though.
I had a '79 Yamaha XS750SP. Completely reliable. It would cruise at 115 mph (legal in Montana, no daytime speed limit back then). I sandblasted the steels in the clutch and added shims under the clutch springs. The clutch was a little stiff and grabby, but it never slipped again. Tuning was key to performance. All the bike magazines said a 650 4-cyl Kawasaki would blow me into the weeds. Two friends had the 650 Kaws; they never had a chance against me. I put over 80,000 miles on that bike including a 14,000 mile cross country cruise towing a trailer. The reason I got rid of the bike was parts availability.
Loved my 1978 XS750 - even at 105,000 miles it felt great to ride. Admittedly it was my first big bike. The only problem I had was loom wear at the headstock. Loved the distinctive triple howl at high revs. Kept it a couple of years until I was rammed from behind into the path of heavy traffic - the driver who hit me admitted he was changing the tape and didn't notice the roundabout at the end of the dual carriageway. - I got a car after that but I'd love to have another XS750 one day although there is no way I'd daily commute by bike again - too many half asleep / morning after drivers these days.
Amazing how inconsistent Yamaha was at that time, some bikes were great some terrible, I wonder why some survived. As a foot not I regularly commute on s motorcycle, it does require a certain mental approach tbh
I had an XS750 from new, I loved it. The reason it didn’t sell as well as it’s rivals was because Yamaha dared to be different, three cylinders and shaft drive. Most people seemed to go for the UJM four cylinder chain drive bikes, which I found dull. Possibly a sales disaster but I would say an engineering success.
There does seem to have been variable quality control at that time, if you get are a good one happy days but a poor one can have a number of problems. A shame as I thought they were a very nice looking bike
Well Triumph sell a lot of three cylinder bikes today as do Yamaha so I think there was a bit more to it than being different, there were quite a few 3 cylinder bikes around during 70s so it wasn’t that different
@@bikerdood1100 Well there was the Rocket 3/Trident and a few two strokes, but in the ‘big four’ Japanese 750-1000 market at the time the XS750 was released it was all chain drive inline fours so Yamaha absolutely bucked the trend with a shaft drive triple. The other bikes cited in the report as having similarly ‘clunky’ drivelines were all shaft drive too. Sometimes I think content creators go for filler rather than killer subject matter that hasn’t (in my humble opinion) been particularly well though out. Everyone else is of course entitled to their own opinions.
@@martinhaskell376 I knew a couple of other people with shaft drive XSs, one a 750 and the other an 1100. Both had gear selection issues and needed gearbox rebuilds but, knowing the riders, it was most likely user-related, rather than design or engineering. Always liked the XS750 myself, but it was a bit too modern for me.
@@martinhaskell376 the XS1100 was intruced in australia, and had some success when converted from shaft drive to chain... bullet proof motor.... just an opionin, but heavy motorcycle.🙄cheers from australia.👍
Had a number of friends who had XS750s, don’t remember transmission problems on them, my 850 triple had about 70,000kms on it when I sold it, the only issue I ever had was a seal go on the driveshaft, it was an easy fix. The valves rarely needed shim adjustment, mine was a great bike.
Had XS750 in 78 with polaris fairing. Being three cylinder it was very smooth, quit different to the 4 cylinder bikes. Never encountered the problems regarding oil supply but I always changed the oil every 2k miles. In short I loved owning it and apart from being on the heavy side, the three cylinder engine with shaft drive made it a pleasure to ride and own.
I had a red XS750E on an ' A ' plate ( A31 VML ) in 1986 and always loved it and did more than 20,000 trouble free miles .Cheap and cosmetically challenged , I restored it as part of a feature in ' Classic & Motorcycle Mechanics ' when parts were at give away prices including exhausts at many Yamaha dealers and was subsequently featured again before parting with it. .I agree with what you say , although the transmission was more ' agricultural ' than a GS 850G Suzuki I had owned previously , it oozed character and the yowl as you opened the throttle wide always brought a wide grin !.Will always have a soft spot for them .
I'm still riding my 1975 Kawasaki Z1 900 I bought used for $1100 in 1977. It's a great bike then and now with routine maintenance and rebuild of components like forks and suspension when needed.
First time I’ve heard of a zx10 as a disaster. Might be a uk only thing giving carb icing. The real disaster was the preceding model. After the success of the 900 the GPZ1000RX was more powerful but much heavier and with poor handling. The ZX10 was a far superior bike
I remember the first GPZ900's having carb icing problems, these were fixed with the de-icing kit, so I'm surprised Kawasaki made the same mistake so soon afterwards.
I had a new silver, grey '76 XS750 and it served me very well for a number of years. It was always dependable. It did however, develop a serious base gasket, oil leak after a few years. I had that repaired and it remained a fine bike. It never let me down. Not too exciting or high performing but a good highway bike which I also used to ride to work in the city and for pleasure trips. In Canada we ride 500 miles/800km for a warm-up ride. 😊
Calling BS on that statement. here in Canada bikes are recreational vehicles and used for the few short summer months when temperature and road conditions allow. The majority of riders do less than 5000 km per year.
I owned two 1978 XS750's one from 79-81 and the other from 82-84. The first used a lot of engine oil, the second was fine. Both had the contact breaker ignition which once set up by my local dealer gave no trouble at all. I found both clutches fine to use. Both bikes brakes were wooden in feel, but did a reasonable job of stopping it and I fitted braided lines and sintered pads, just becoming available at that time. Because the shaft jacked up the rear under acceleration there was an art to riding them, and the throttle had to be used very smoothly to avoid jerkiness in lower gears around town. In all I did around 30k miles on them including 651 miles in one day, to Lands End and back. That's when I found the saddle was only good for about 500 miles 😁 Not a perfect machine, but characterful and a real riding pleasure.
@@karlvanboxel561 You’re quite right about the XJs. I had the XJ650 after the second XS750, from 85 to 89. It was the turbo version and was a better bike than the XS, though less character and the clutch wasn’t quite up to the job if you really used full power. It was probably my favourite bike of that era, but I might be a bit biased as I bought it as an insurance write off and spent 6 months rebuilding it 😁
I have always heard good things about the Yamaha XS750. I heard they were extremely reliable. even though Yamaha has it's and downs. it's a shame that the Sunbeam faired so poorly. it seemed like a unique design. BSA probably didn't want it to drag their main line of motorcycles down. I owned a 1980 Honda CB750K with a full vetter fairing with lowers. that was color matched with the bike. and I hated the chain drive. it would make a person's hands sting on long rides.
There really were problems were the XS which were widely reported at the time, Yamaha seemed to have suffered with quality control particularly early on . Some people have responded with great stories about the bike, some terrible. I liked the Sunbeam concept but it’s styling probably appeals to modern riders used to bobber style bikes than it ever did in its day. It may have done better with more robust transmission but it wasn’t what post war riders seemed to want. Post war British bikers in particular were a conservative bunch are generally stirred away from anything different, shame
@@bikerdood1100 Most of the people I know that have owned the XS750 had good things to say. one in particular he rode his all the time. and he almost no problems with his. and it had a ton of miles on it. and the others that did have problems they were minor. none of them had major problems.
I've got over 180K miles on my 77 Xs750. other than a slight 2nd gear issue, it runs like a champ. even after putting it down at 60 mph in the dirt. new bars, new cluster, new headlight, and she was off for more adventures. love that bike. still have it, even though my daily rider has been changed several times since then.
@@bikerdood1100 I recently picked up an 81 Harley FLH, and the Xs750 seems like a bike 2 generations ahead of it in terms of build quality, ride quality, and just overall dependability, despite actually being 5 years it's senior, as mine was an initial production bike, built in August of 76.
I still have my 1979 Yamaha XS750 Special.....It's a great bike if you're a taller rider, and I've found it to be bulletproof....Of the bike itself, the heads will run cooler if the casting burrs are removed from the air passages (using a drill makes for easy work) and use the optional air scoop.....Biggest mistake I made was installing a set of MAC 3 into1 headers....These set up a harmonious vibration that ended when the center header weld broke at the flange within about 90 days.....MAC refused to warranty them , even though it was just the down pipes.....Other than that, I've just never been let down by this bike and I've ridden countless miles comfortably ......It's been 'resting' in my shop many years now as my attention moved back to my Triumph TR3A sportscar that my wife and I can enjoy together ....People can be critical, but it's usually lack of maintenance and finesse in operating that causes most machine failures........... John (west coast, Can.)
Definitely some quality control issues at Yamaha at that time. Bike always seemed a good design but Clearly quality control issues were not what they should have been at times
@@bikerdood1100 Well,...I guess mine was built on a good day, when everyone was in a good mood......Wish I could say the same for the folks at MAC headers.....
My brother had a XS750, drove it whole year round even in the snow never a problem. It was the version with the 24 liter tank and we went a lot to France I with my bike and he could drive much futher than me with that big tank.
Personal experience doesn't agree with you. I once had an XS750SE, which first had the common fail of popping out of 2nd. When i finally fixed it I went for a testride and exploded the engine end of the shaft drive.
First, get a better microphone/audio mixer. You are very hard to understand. Second, judging from the number of responses from Yamaha triple people I read below, You may have been a bit hasty calling The XS750/850 'fails'. About the time I changed careers from being a mechanic at a Yamaha shop, I bought an new 1978 XS750D - red over silver. I didn't sell it till 2014. It wasn't perfect, but it was pretty, made a glorious sound running a ton, and never left me stranded. Some of the reliability things I did see: The clips holding the fuses under the seat would break from the vibration. Yes, it had perfect primary balance but it had a nasty side-to-side rocking couple. The side-stand pivot wore out from supporting the weight. If you pushed it hard through left-handers the center-stand tang would drag. If you drug it hard enough you broke the center-stand. This was a pretty common issue on bikes of that era. The motor eventually developed enough blow-by that the crankcase vent could not handle it. I ended up redesigning the vent. Related to this, one of the pressed-in plugs where they drilled an oil passage in the head started weeping oil. The cooling on the center cylinder was always marginal for really high performance. It was just fine for fast touring, but if you pushed it too hard for too long you would cause issues. Second gear was always slow and clunky and if you forced it to shift faster than it wanted to go you would break it. Give it enough time when shifting and it would outlive you. Eventually the slides and bodies of the CV carbs wear out making them hard to synchronize. Again, this was common on bikes of that era. Some of the good stuff: Initially I checked the valve lash regularly. It only needed needed the valves adjusted once, right after break-in. Aside from two or three changes of gear oil, the shaft drive was totally maintenance free. A joy on a trip when compared to the chain drives on bikes of that era. The clutch and bottom-end were bulletproof. They used essentially the same components in the 1100 four. It had very solid handling and mostly felt like a locomotive till you got to the limit. Even at the limit it didn't get nasty, just wallowed in a way that said 'enough'. Yamaha really tried to put all the latest tech on these bikes: The triple disk brakes were God's own anchors. The CV carbs gave wonderful throttle response. It featured one of the first adjustable front forks on a sport-touring bike. I think this was the first production bike with self-canceling turn signals. For the day these were above average in reliability and features and about average in performance. I'm clearly biased, but I wouldn't call the Yamaha XS triples fails...
Perhaps you should have read more responses. The Xs was a real mixed bag some responses have contained some real horror stories, I’m working on the mice incidentally I’m a health care worker not a professional journalist
I had a Yamaha XS 750S and discovered some other flaws not mentioned . . Mine was the 1979 burgundy version and I loved the Ferrari-like zoom sound it made , smooth virtually no vibrations and great for touring . That first summer straight away I went on a July tour from Ontario ,Canada across the USA and deep into Mexico ( and back !) where I discovered that the engine detested the low octane Mexican fuel of the day and showed it by detonating and running poorly or stopping . A manual cam chain tensioner needed regular adjustments but soon the single-row roller chain needed replacement in the second year at 45000km . That turned out to become a regular event-spacing for that process . At 100000km engine compression went goofy low , so with a Clymer shop manual in hand and basic tools I tore off the head and cylinders and got the barrels honed and put in new rings . That repair seemed to do the trick for another 50000km . Along the way the primary chain began slapping the cases and needed replacement , even though being a multi-row Hy-vo type. With the head off I saw that the N7Y spark plugs had a very long threaded end which still remained more than 1cm up in the plug hole ,far away from the combustion chamber . . I bet that had something to do with detonation ! I have allways kept the oil levels filled to the proper marks and changed them at recommended intervals . Another irritant was that the "resistor " spark plug caps were prone to short out in rain and road spray often stopping the bike, a problem I solved by replacing the small resistors with stubs of heavy copper wire .And a final joy killer was the exhaust system which has double walled header pipes so as not to cause the chrome on the exposed surface to discolour from heat ( O, perish the thought !) .After a number of years the inner pipes rusted through the welds holding the ends and let the remains bounce and rattle around destroying the Ferrari effect . With a recurrence of low compression and all the rattling I had had enough and parked the bike at 143000km in 1984. It was a fun bike but Yamaha clearly had not yet found their skills in four stroke engine design ( I have owned other Yamahas later and have no complaints against the brand ) . It did teach me a lot about motor mechanic work and the shaft drive was flawless , even the "jacking" on turning the throttle grip was fun . Even today I use some of the very Yamaha valve clearance shims in exchange when adjusting the valves on my Kawasaki KLR because , like some Suzuki shims, they are of identical specifications . And I learned to appreciate disc brakes and tubeless tires .
I had an xs 750 I did thousands of miles on it including thrashing it to the IOM from kent 2up in 89. I dont have a bad word to say about them one of the best bikes I had . It went well sounded lovely an took a good hiding. When I eventually sold it there was still nothing wrong with it.
I worked at a Triumph dealer when the TT600 and the new Bonneville rolled out. Each dealer was to send a mechanic to special training for the dealer to be eligible to receive the new models. I attended training but the Bikes were already being distributed regardless of training. The nature of the dealer network in North America at the time was inconsistent. Many dealers didn’t prep the bikes correctly and just uncrated and sold them. We were getting tt600 owners bringing their bikes 100miles or more for warranty complaints. All were set up related. If it was set up correctly with the stock exhaust, it wasn’t bad. It was just like any other 600 in that you had to spool it up to get results. The FI wasn’t worth the added expense when a ZX600 with a mild jet kit could run circles around it for the money. The net result from the TT was Triumph moving on from Sagem to Keihin FI, which is more tunable on all Triumph models that followed. The best version of the TT series was the Speed Four and then the Hooligan Daytona 650…..which got rid of leftover parts and blazed the trail for the 675. Both excellent buys in todays market. Just don’t crash one. You won’t find parts. Thanks for the video. Also agreed with the Yamaha triple commentary. The latter models were the best, but the fours overshadowed the XS triples.
A son & I have Speed Fours (bough second-hand 2020, 2021) and love them to bits. I also have a 2006 Daytona 675, a 2012 Bonnie T100 and a '93 Trident with a sidecar attached.
I can say, from experience, that it was the 900r that had the carb-icing issue, my first one did it, the engine would cut out. I had two ZX10s later on that didn’t have that problem, at least Kawasaki recalled the GPz 900s and fitted carb heaters.
I can only refer to the experiences of those I’ve met, I looked after a Zx10 owner who did have issues Water cooling and cabs Not always a good combination
First of all, I don't consider crotch rockets, with or without fairings, as legitimate street motorcycles. I owned a bought new 1980 Yamaha XS750 Special for almost 5 years and just over 40,000 miles. It was 100% trouble free, and was a great looking bike. Very fast and very comfortable. It had a great riding position, and shaft drive. I replaced it with a low mileage garage kept 1980 XS1100 Special, and rode that for 7 years and over 50,000 miles. The Yamaha Specials from that era were my favorite motorcycles of all time. From the XS400 Special to the XS1100 Special, they were all wonderful and beautiful bikes.
Back in 1977 the XS 750 was a good bike, bit expensive, had it's quirks, but trust me compared to it's rivals it held it's own. It had a tendency to overheat on slip roads after a 3 hour motorway thrash, and the gearboxes did give trouble on the early ones, but the very fact that you could do a fast ( over 110mph) motorway trash in 1977, two up with sodden tents etc. They were very stable and inspired confidence. I really liked them, but ultimately the GS 850 and GT 750 would prove to be more memorable and enduring bikes. Probably still a good buy though.
I had two ZX10's early on and loved them both. Great tourers and mine were exceptionally good on fuel too. I'm fairly sure that the ten was produced with heated carbs from the start. Both of mine had them and I knew the owners from new of both bikes and they never had retrospective work done on them. I never experienced carb icing on either but having said that, they weren't the easiest things to ride in snow on our appalling Devon roads so I used a CX or DT in winter. The Ten was rushed out to replace the not too well received RX and itself was replaced within 3 years by the ZZR1100. I still have 4 ZX10's tucked away in my barn and keep promising myself I will get them back on the road before I cark it! Open to offers though.....
Well I can only speak to experiences of the owners I’ve met and what happened to them, hade a patient back in the late 80s who had an accident on his Zx10. Likely effected the whole family of engines, early water cooled bikes did pose a few challenges
Great video. I had 2 XS750's 1st was a 78 XS750D my first big bike, loved it had it a year with no probs then it got nicked. 2nd a couple bikes later was a 80 XS750E which after a year started to jump out 3rd gear. You couldn't give these bikes away then early 80's sold to a guy (£350) who knew the problem but just wanted it for work, & thrashed it into the ground! Fond memories of that 1st XS.
@@bikerdood1100 only if you hammered (drag raced the crap out of) them. Then the gear dogs wore so it wouldn't stay in gear. XS11s and the big Kawasakis and Suzukis had the same problem.
Had a 76 model XS750 that took me everywhere here in Australia. Brakes felt a bit dull but a change of pad type sorted that. Done around 90 thousand kilometres before selling to a mate who rode it for about 4 or 5 years before selling it. First time I ever heard of one having a heavy/clunky gear change.
Oh they were very variable and some early models could be nightmares or great . Yamaha lucky dip it seems. I do think people who rode em hard hit trouble early
I had a 1980 Yamaha XS850 triple - very plush ride and very reliable except the automatic fuel taps quickly fail, and the 2nd and 5th gears failed early if you shifted w/o pulling the clutch all the way in. Main problem was TERRIBLE/Dangerous handling above 55 mph. The XS1100 also had terrible handling. I have a 1983 Suzuki GS1100 and it handles like a 1965-75 English bike (very well) only 100 lb heavier. The extra weight disappears above 40 mph. A lovely machine. And cheap to buy nowadays.
I never recall carb icing being an issue with the ZX-10. It arose with the earlier GPz900r (ZX900 Ninja) from which the ZX-10 was derived. Kawasaki sorted the problem out quickly with a recall and a modification which was fitted on all production bikes from 1985 onwards. I think you may be getting the models mixed up here.
@Beyond The bubble. .Yup. More ‘internet’ knowledge about faults. Luckily, now a few thousand will be experts on ZX-10 carb icing that never really existed.
Yes my ZX10 outside never had carb Icing ? Dyno Jet stage 3 kit fitted and an extra 25bhp , total monster even today I wipe out latest tech ! I have had 3 ZX10s over the years I owned a bike shop in the 90s , have one still outside now in black and silver the best colour !
I had a XS750D from new, drove for almost 10k miles before being parked. Mostly reliable but would pop out of 2nd gear because of weak shift forks which was replaced under warranty once, second time I left it be. The other downsides were the huge single muffler that would often drag on the right side and the bike was heavy. Loved the alloy wheels and shaft drive, I put on a Vetter fairing which made winter riding and freeway speeds tolerable.
I had 2 xs750. Used them as a courier bike with not much problems 145000 & 128000 miles on them til I sold them on. Just oil & filter changes was good enough. Both were did models.
The only thing that hindered the XS from being success was the 3 cyl design. Market wanted a 4 cyl from 600cc upwards. That bike was rock solid though. Yamaha produced decades anward shaft drive, esp their hottest ever bike was shaft driven as well, the VMax 1200 and 1700
I owned a 78 Yam triple with the same paint job you had here. I’ve seen red ones as well over the decades. Anyway my XS750 was faultless as I never had a problem with it what so ever until. I’d had the bike for two yrs and my local Yam dealer did all the services on it. However, I got posted interstate (RAAF) and had to find another mechanic. I found the local Yam dealer there and when it was due it’s 30k service took it to them. When I picked the bike up it sounded like a chaff cutter. I asked the reason for the noise and they said the came chain was loose and it couldn’t be tightened ( now this bike always sounded nice and you basically had to put your head near the barrel to hear the chain ). I then asked if the cam chain was not a problem when I dropped it off why would it now. He then told me that previous mechanics didn’t know what they were doing. I then showed him my owners manual with all the past services. He dismissed that and sort of grunted to which I replied you f..king idiot you have f..Jed up a perfectly good motorbike. You should be hung drawn and f..king quartered. I tried to get it fixed at another place, but this idiot had totally f..ked a great bike.
I had the x5 750 and I put 50,00 miles on it. The exhaust rotted out early but headers gave more power and sounded great. I loved the shaft drive, low maintenance.
A bit of trivia about the XS750: Yamaha collaborated with Porsche on the engine design. Also, in the video one of the bikes had wire wheels. As far as I know wire wheels were only available in the domestic (Japanese) market. I know of a couple of people in the US that found the proper hubs in Japan and had wheels made from them.
I bought a XS-750 f 1979m model. . . Yes the second gear was fragile if you'd rev it past 5,000 rpm in first but I beleive the problem originated in the long throw of the shifter betwen first and second gear. . . Ride was exemplary, comfortable like a sofa , , As for power, amongst it's pears of the year, it was the fastest of them all, japaneeses 750 cc cousins . . Not talking about the torque output that was unmatched by any of them and the so sweet sound of tripples engines 😊
My TT600, a red and grey model, was the best handling sports bike I've been on. I can't remember many problems with flats spots but it was a bit frumpy looking
@@bikerdood1100 I remember looking at the XS 650 IN 1980 and thinking what a great bike it could be with 3 cylinders and shaft drive too. It had the potential to be a big seller.
I've owned big Kawasaki's (GPz, GPX and ZZR's) since the mid 80's and never once had "carb icing" problems. Biggest issue was the flat spot at 4K rpm on the ZZR1200. Fixed with Dynojet kit! No problems with the ZZR1400PS aside from Kawasaki cancelling it in 2020...
You may be a little harsh on the XS750. In period, it was well regarded. Via the XS850, it was Yamaha's learning curve towards the XS1100 and thence onward into UJM territory. The market was less defined at that time, so many new models may have seemed an odd fit. But the XS750 was by no means an engineering disaster.
@@bikerdood1100 Well, the newest ones are around forty years old.... So there will be some iffy ones out there. And back in the day Yamaha were late to the UJM party. I was a courier in London for a few years in the mid-80s and there were usually a couple of XS triples on the rank in any firm.... struggling on with a shitty top box strapped to the seat. It was not a GS750, but it was not a disaster. 😊
My first job was for a company called Rediffusion, in Wolverhampton. They were situated in the old Sunbeam factory, and, apparently, when they took it over, there were still plenty of parts left in the premises
Oh how I remember Rediffusion, it was the only way to get a decent TV signal in Stoke. Back in the day, fascinating that they were based in the old plant. It’s a small world, well the Midlands is small
@@bikerdood1100 They actually picked up an airwaves broadcast signal, amplified it, then delivered it to customers via copper-wire cable. I think that was all before colour TV: certainly I only saw colour telly a few years later
@@bikerdood1100 Incidentally, that was only one of the half-a dozen industries that have disappeared on me lol. I keep remembering another, every now and then. The wine and spirits department soldiers on, of course!
I had a 1981 XS 1100 RH Yamaha purchased new. I rode that bike hard and long distances as well. I still consider it one of the best bikes ever. A friend owned an XS 850 triple and he used to flog that machine including doing decent wheelies and doughnuts. He pounded that machine until it faded from being constantly abused. Great machines.
Sorry but they were notorious. I’m sure that some bikes were great but even looking at the responses to this video you can plainly see that the bikes could vary between great and terrible. Contemporary reports from the 70s really do seem to back this up. Wether it’s a mater of good maintenance or good fortune some machines are really good but unfortunately not all .
@@bikerdood1100 Thanks for the response. I was incredibly involved in this era of the US bike industry. I respectfully agree to disagree. I had my finger on the pulse of what was going on and base my comment on my personal experience and reading most of the motorcycle publications available at the time. Certainly the XS750 was not a perfect bike but very far from a "Disaster"
@@marshallbrowne5371 as an owner at the time I can confirm that the machine was an absolute disaster. That much is clearly documented. Yamaha did correct the horrendous engine faults as time went on. The later F model was in my opinion a great bike, and I suspect the 850 was too but I never rode one. I regret that Yamaha didn’t get it right first time, it was a handsome bike with a beautiful exhaust note.
@@johnedwards1685 Thanks for your input. I respect that was your experience. Maybe he should have specified the year of that he considered it a disaster. I have owned over 60 bikes from that era in my life and motorcycles were my life for many years.
It was a great looking bike but those early problems wrecked sales. Unfortunately We do get quite a lot of contributors with not so happy experiences. No doubt the 850 was a fair bit better
So many varied stories about the Xs some good some very bad, particularly from the work shop guys , hard to know it it was made worse by hard riding or variable build quality. Shaft drive is always a bonus, nice and clean
Wife had a new TT600 in 2000. Handled great with good brakes as you say. It ran a bit flat. Triumph supplied camshafts Etc FOC after I managed to speak to one of the head bods at Triumph one Christmas Eve.. Lacked a bit of power but wife liked it.
After college when I had a little money I bought the 1978 Yamaha. I wanted a BMW but after riding a few and getting on the Yamaha the BMW's seemed like tractors in comparison. I loved that bike but a few months after buying it a drunk driver broadsided me in my van, thankfully missing the driver door by 12 inches. I sold the bike, as riding in a big city just spooked me. Now as a seasoned old fart and having had close to 200 different bikes your video brought back great memories of that Yamaha.
xs 750 right as a ex yam tec in the 80.s and 90.s problems i saw were leaking head and base gaskets oil use over heating lots of primary drive chains loose and rattling. fork seals pitted fork legs. i had two of them and once sorted were good bikes. as good as most japanese bikes of the 80.s
Ditto Clavius Maximus's comments. Zero issues, with many in town and highway miles. Daily ridden to work and thrashed playing. Only noted problem was some head shake over 135mph, with a known Timken bearing remedy I never bothered implementing. Tedious maintenance may make a difference. Rode it from 1977 until I gave it to my brother in 2001.
It’s English. American I guess ? Americans think we all sound like the royal Family or something, thankfully not. We have many varied and interesting accents, if you struggle with mine then I wouldn’t visit Scotland without a translator 😂
I owned a 1979 XS 750 Yamaha for a few years. Yeah, the transmission was clunky and the shaft drive gave it the feeling that you'd get riding in a boat then letting off the gas, and you'd get that surfing feeling. Except the 750 rose at the rear as you accelerated. Tough bike, started every time I wanted to ride it as long as the battery was up for it. Never had a problem with the points.
A lot of the problems were seen in the early bikes but Yamaha build quality did seem to be quite variable back then with some bikes being very good and Somme quite the opposite
I'm 47 years old and have ridden many motorcycles of all makes and configurations but the only bike that had catastrophic engine failure whilst I was riding it was a 1990 Kawasaki ZX10,a con-rod failing and punching through the side of the block,a problem I later found that wasn't unknown on that family of engines and mainly the GPZ1000RX,ZX10 and the early incarnations of the ZZR1100.
@@bikerdood1100 it sure was,it briefly scared the sh@t out of me,almighty bang like a sledgehammer had hit the bike then incredibly harsh vibration (and I use jackhammers at work!) ,it even moved the mirrors.Pulled over at the side of the road and it didn't take much to trace the oil to its escape route.I didn't believe that Japanese bikes ever blew up or broke down until that point!
I had an XS750 from new which I loved initially but eventually became disenchanted with the lack of power. Previous bike had been a Honda 750 F1 [the first one with a 4 in to 1 exhaust. Fabulous bike ]. After a few weeks I took the XS back to the dealer and asked them to have a look at the engine as it was pretty gutless. They obliged and when I picked it up they said sorry, nothing wrong with it, that's the way it is. I traded it in after a few months of ownership.
It shouldn’t have been gutless after all the power claims were pretty good by the standards of the day..Perhaps dealer just couldn’t be bothered to look at it
One of my sons bought a 2003 Triumph Speed Four 600cc. It has the same fuelling problems as the TT 600, but by judicial use of clutch slip and picking the right gear you can overcome that. I was sufficiently impressed to buy a 2006 model: this had improved fuelling, though it can still gets the hesitancy around 3000rpm but, as per my son's, it can be overcome. Both bikes are second hand being bought in 2002 & 2021. We love the bikes but accept that they are not really town bikes: fortunately we both live in rural areas.
That’s strange, because it should have been sorted by that model, my 2002 bike furled just fine. Would be interesting to know where you are based. I wonder if they had problems meeting US emissions laws for example. Uk and Europe models don’t generally show such problems. Perhaps the dealer who sold the bikes didn’t update the map in the CPU. Interesting
@@bikerdood1100 NZ. My 2006 was in fact an import from Japan in 2020. My son's 2003 has been track tweeked (though he rides it on the road) with all sorts of mods. Mine is bog standard but I did get it serviced after buying it. I wasn't happy with that dealer, so next tune up and service I will travel the extra 30km each way to another Triumph dealer.
Honda had a CX500/650 Turbo in 82/83 Kawasaki had a GPZ750 turbo in 84 Yamaha and Suzuki had turbos at the same time On a different note the XS650 Yamaha of the same time vibrated so badly that if you put it on the center stand and gave it some throttle it would bounce backwards The perfect first date bike
That was my favorite when my had a Yamaha dealership in the 80s . Only a little kid back then but got to ride on the back of all the fastest bikes of the time my second favorite was the CBX. But that seca turbo was the coolest
The Yamaha Dealer ship owner had one I rode it & liked it only cost me $1900.00 straight from Japan. I gave my Dad my 1978 Yamaha XS 650 Special twin $600.00 with Electronic Ignition that we put on for $100.00 Also the XJ Turbo was in a James Bond Movie 😊
Cheers mate! Just to add, my grand parents had an S7 with sidecar back in the 50’s. Didn’t see it except in photos but I’d love to have one. That and a nice GS750 😀
Judging by the comments my brand new XS750D ( 1st model ) was a lemon. I had mine less than 3 months and the engine blew up on me. I was told mine it was the first in Australia ( and possibly the world ) to seize. The motor even went back to Japan for evaluation. Now before you think I did something wrong, I didn't. It was run in and serviced by the book by a Yamaha dealer. They gave me a new motor and that wasn't much better. The valve train wore rapidly and the selector forks especially when changing into 2nd gear were stuffed. I eventually gave up and bought a Ducati 900. I have owned several bikes since and none of them have given me as much trouble as that 750 did. I have refused to own a Yamaha ever since.
I bought a clean low km 1977 XS750 for $110 in 1983. It had a light tapping sound which turned out to be the middle big end. Undersized bearings were available down to 0.040" undersize. Unfortunately my crank was worn by more than 0.040". I went on a wrecking yard hunt with micrometer in hand and looked at 6 or 7 cranks before I found one with a good middle crank pin. I also had an XS850 which notably had an engine oil cooler (the 750 didn't), as well as a ridiculously tall first gear. I later had a '78 XS1100, good solid bike.
ZX10 never had carb icing that was the GPZ900R and some GPZ1000RX which both had the heated carbs recall. The issue also never occurred on motorways cruising it only happened when the carbs were hard shut for a period after acceleration due to freezing of the atomised mixture as flow rate changed.
Had an XS750 (with a T suffix reg.), loved the motor and the looks, but sadly could not say the same of the handling. At speed in a straight line it would develop a rapid wobble at the rear end which would transfer its way forwards over about 8 to 10 seconds (a bit like the way a dog shakes itself, but in the opposite direction), this cycle would keep repeating every minute or so, but never made the bike unstable. Bitch number ONE was the way it would skid the rear wheel when changing down under deceleration such as approaching a junction.
I owned a 1977 XS750, purchased new. Worst bike I ever owned. I got hit by the oil supply problem. The cam chain wore really bad and made a big racket. Had to adjust it weekly. I bit me on a 3 week tour by slipping a cog. Ran poorly most of the trip, then died before I could get home. The chain skipped even more cogs. I had it a total of 3 years. Fixed it and sold it for a Suzuki 850 - 4. which was the best bike I owned.
Surprised the Suzuki TL1000 didn't make the list, with it's ill feted rotary damper on the rear suspension, (space saving due to the big v twin) overheating and locking up, causing fatalities.
I had two of the XS750's both excellent rides reliable and I did a lot of touring with my wife (then my girlfriend). The only problem I had with the first one (a D model was it dropped a valve on me which was replaced under warranty, My second bike was set up with 22 ltr panniers a Rickman top box a Pantera full fairing with a big CIBI headlight built in indicators, and sidelights. A dash with Ammeter, Clock, CB unit with a neck mike, a radio with waterproof speakers and an air temperature gauge from a Wessex helicopter. That fairing was heavy. One thing I found out was the shaft drive unit was a BMW unit reversed to fit on the Yamaha. I guess it was made under licence in Japan for Yamaha. I enjoyed both of them but had to sell the last one to a growing family Happy days
Had 2 xs 750s both having no second gear but I got used to going from 1st to 3rd so much so when I swapped out lump for the 850 which had 2nd gear I had to get out of the old gear chane habit
I had a '75 XS750's. The big problem was that it was way down on power compared to similar models, although '77 and later models were much improved. The red line went from 7500 to 9500 rpm and the power increased to where it was comparable to other 750s. It was also quite heavy, for a sporty bike, but that was normal for the era. The shaft drive was a huge problem as up or down on the throttle would jack the back end up and down and change your line in a corner. It just didn't handle at all well. I didn't even bother trying. It also had a band of painful vibration that in top gear came in between 50 and 70 mph, which of course was made highway riding unpleasant. Much later I had an '81 XJ650 Seca that was smaller, lighter much faster, had no vibration issue, and handled infinitely better, even though it still had shaft drive. The good point was the styling. Both bikes looked fabulous. At least in North America there was a cruiser model, (back then they called them customs) that sold well, particular with the larger 850cc motor.
I had a Yamaha DOHC 750 all shaft as we called it then, great power but thirsty on fuel, about half the economy of a Honda CB750 of the same period. Was warned of middle cylinder issues but I never seen that, swinging arm though was an issue with ceased tensioners, needed regular servicing I remember, can do a ton easy.
A lot of triples had middle cylinder troubles of all types, I remember a friends Suzuki ate it’s mid cylinder and then was the Triumph BSAs. Often think it’s linked to the centre carb maybe maintenance maybe som3 left the factory set up poorly who knows but 3 cylinder bikes definitely dropped out of favour for a while
I had one of the very first xs 750 machines which I purchased at a discount dealer in Reading England.I have to say it was one of the best bikes I have owned though it was pretty heavy and had a tendency to squeel the tyres if throttle shutdown was too aggressive.The engine sound remimnded me of the American muscle cars and surely motorcyles are about more, than just mechanical imperfections. Lets face it .shaft drive has never been the popular choice and much decried by those who have never enjoyed the luxury of not messing about with stretched oily chains It's good to see people who have actually owned an xs 750 commenting positively from their experiences because sadly any one can write anything on the internet ! and unfortunately too many do.
Well many motorcycles do use shaft drive and love them, unfortunately the bike had a bad rap in the 70s for poor reliability on some bikes. It seems to me that Yamaha build quality was a rather variable at that time. In the price I’m not quoting from the internet but from contemporary publications. It’s just picked out of the either I’m afraid
@@bikerdood1100 Thank you! A polite measured honest response to which I would say keep up the good work, because without people like you the internet would be a sterile adverts only platform,
I had a TT600. I think it was 1999 model. Cornered like it was on rails. Brilliant brakes. Not quite as fast as the Japanese 600’s but I could live with that. The fuelling was a nightmare. Docile under 2,500 rpm, bonkers at 2,501 rpm. Had to be careful it didn’t try to take off half way round a round about. It had to go.
after listening to your matter of fact sounding critique i'm curious as to just how much seat time you personally have had on a first gen xs750 because your whole list of claimed negatives were all pretty much bullshit and you didn't mention the one real quirk about the 1st XS shaft bikes and that is under acceleration, especially hard acceleration, the rearend of the bike would lift dramatically which could extremely unnerving when getting on the gas during hard cornering, feeling the back of bike lift when you are leaned over hard in a corner can get scary but the rest of your claims are pretty much crap as i'm sure other old owners of xs's will confirm......
Don’t believe I was commenting on how the bike rides. More about historical issues encountered. Judging by some of the comments I missed a few issues in all honesty. The issues mentioned are well known and documented. It seems to me that Yamaha were a little inconsistent in terms of production quality in the 70s some bikes certainly had no issues but a lot did and I can’t change that even if I did think that it was a very handsome bike. I’ve never ridden an Indian brave 250 but it’s still a turkey
Regarding Yamaha and shaft drive, you have omitted the European success story of their BT1100 Bulldog an air cooled Vee twin with shaft drive. This was aimed primarily at the European market, but also had reasonable success here in the UK and still has a faithful following among enthusiasts.
The 600cc sport bike market got started good in the 80's inside the US, with bikes like the Honda Hurricane and the Kawasaki Ninja. They were more affordable in regards to purchase price and insurance, and they gave new riders an avenue into the sport bike persona. But for those of us who learned to ride at an early age on machines like the Honda Z50 and various domestic minibikes, we saw absolutely no point in owning a 600cc motorcycle, 750 was the bare minimum and even those usually got replaced with one of the liter bikes.
@@bikerdood1100 ya when the Highway patrol got zx14 concourses you did too they made me beat my R6 to death. The 600s with EFI we're fine against the 1200 BMWs and the Big Twin HDs you could mess with them and let them catch up.
@@stewartmckinley7058 In the 80's the 600 Hurricane was a entry level sport bike, purchased by mostly new riders wanting to be part of the sport bike graze and as such, most were destroyed in accidents, so yeah I'm sure they are hard to find.
I had a Sunbeam S7 for several years. It was not a good motorcycle. It was capable of 75+ mph, but it really wasn't happy above 55. At speeds above 35 mph, it would blow oil out the engine breather, which, being located at the front of the rocker cover, meant it oiled almost the entire engine, and everything else aft and below. The front driveshaft coupling was 4 rubber bushings in a tinplate sandwich, and the bushings failed. The rear drive was a worm and crown wheel, (an unsuitable application) and the crown wheel broke. It also oiled the single dry plate clutch, and regularly broke the flexible exhaust coupling. I also had a chance to ride a Yamaha XS 750. Aside from the shaft effect, there was a slight delay in its response to steering inputs. When you wanted to lean into a curve, it didn't heel over immediately. No other quirks, so I suspect it was not unique to this particular example.
With the Sunbeams the most common complaint seems to have been around that worm drive, not a good design at all. The XS seems to have been incredibly inconsistent with different machines varying anywhere between great, ok and terrible. Shame because I always thought it looked good
@@bikerdood1100 Many Japanese bikes of that era used plastic (teflon?) swing arm bushings. As they wore, the handling got worse. I rode a Waterbuffalo, and it had the 'hinge in the middle', probably due to shot bushings.
I had a tt 6 , it was a bit snatchy at low revs but once it picked up it was brilliant, plenty of room on it and good for miles , 😀 I'd have another but there are definitely better bikes out there
Thanks for some interesting assessments. As a callow youth I had fancied the then new XS750 Yamaha but was basically too poor to buy one (so I ended up with an SR500). One night however I dreamt I was riding a beautiful new Silver/Blue XS750 which I proceeded to put down the road in, I think a low side crash. While I still have a soft spot for them, I have steadfastly refused to ever ride one; just in case!
My Yammie XS750D, I think about '76-'77 model, (same colour scheme as the example in this video), was a great reliable daily rider, though a bit heavy and underpowered, travelling 120klm round trip too and from work each day. Very heavy on fuel, but I rode it hard, eventually retired it, the primary chain had stretched to the point of rattling against the crankcase, (a problem addressed in the E, next, model). Ended up trading it on a Honda 750 four K2 if I can remember back that far, Honda, "bombproof".
Such a mixed bag of comments on the poor old XS. last one was from a mechanic at a dealership. Some horror stories there. The bike really seems to have been inconsistently built if you got a good one it was happy days
@@bikerdood1100 They had a odd setup for XS production that I read somewhere. They decided to train new engine assemblers on certain models at different times through the year early XS was one of those. Maybe they had a tech that wasn't a great teacher for some?
I had the XS750E it was a grunty higher tuned model but the handling was twangy in an S bend and the breaks useless in the rain - in the end, the chain tensioner silencing rubber came off the ground and blocked the oil screen and the middle pot nipped up and conrod seized
As the former owner of an 80 850 Special I can tell you Yamaha did not fix on elf the cooling issues. And at about 35.000 miles. The center cylinder intake valve went. So I get it fixed. And for someone living paycheck to paycheck. That really hurt but what was worse at 40.000 miles. The timing chain was stretching and needed to be replaced. Talking to the Yamaha mechanic (not the place who did the valve job) was told that you have to split the cases. Way outta my budget. Rode it till it wouldn't run no more and junked it. A friend had a Kawasaki 750 and it had 140.000 +....
They (XS750’s) had a gearbox fault, didn’t they? I recall my mate having the XS850…not sure if it had been tweaked, but in first it would leave rubber on the road.
How, exactly, do you define disaster? Something really bad, right? Other than the super rare antiques, Sunbeam and MV Agusta 350, I've riden all of these bikes with none of the "disasters" that you described. In particular the Yam Xs750 was a great bike. I just saw a 78 Xs750 at the hardware store a week back. The owner told me his 44 year old "disaster" has been his summer daily driver since forever. Yeah a 44 year old "disaster " still running strong.
The Xs has a long a very well documented history of problems especially early on I can’t change history I’m afraid. The fact that some bikes were great only proves the inconsistency of Yamaha’s production quality at the time, if you got a bad one it was a stinker. There are sound reasons the machine didn’t sell too well and why Yamaha didn’t follow it up with another triple for decades
Sorry mate but the XS 750 was a rocksolid tourer, some problems occurred in the mid cylinder bearings when driven hard with low oil. No chain layout made the XS a great ownership choice!
Really do get very mixed stories from the XS some good some terrible
@@bikerdood1100 Been in the motorcycle industry all my life. Never heard of ongoing problems with the Xs750. And heard about problems with other bikes daily. How about the 83 GS850 with the poorly cast and finished engine cases? Puddles of oil on the showroom floor. Almost all needed the entire engine swapped out. Suzuki lost a lot of money on that bike. I was in motorcycle dealerships for last 40 years. There WERE problems. You did not list any of them. Where have you been?
The first versions of the XS 750 had it’s share of problems. Not enough oil available in the sump made the conrod bearing run warm. From the introduction of the XS 750 E was this corrected, and the world had another solid tourer.
The XS 850 was the crown of the juwel - and only lasted two seasons. 🤷🏼♂️
I loved my XS 650. It was very fast and handled great. It was super vibrational, though, so looking in the rear view mirrors was pointless.
My pops owned an xs750 for 10 years without a hiccup.
I was a Yamaha dealership mechanic in the 70s when the yamaha 750 showed up. The 750, and the 850 triples were notorious second gear eaters. One of the mechanics I worked with at that Yamaha shop did so many Second gear replacements, that he actually figured a way to do it through the clutch basket cover without removing the engine from the frame and splitting the cases..
During those years several Yamaha’s had weak second gears… The Yamaha venture 1983 1984 in 1985 had second gear failures, even the Almighty FJ 1100 had a fragile second gear..
I know many people that wouldn’t consider buying a used Yamaha , 750, or 850 simply because of the nightmare second gear failures..
in 2015,i spotted a 1977 Yamaha 750 triple sitting in the back of a man’s garage as I was sitting at a redlight.. I yelled over to him, would you consider selling that motorcycle?. He said possibly..He had bought the bike new in 1977. It had been sitting in his garage unused since 1986, at least that was the newest year of the registration sticker on his license plate..
I convinced him to sell it to me. I did the normal resurrection procedure, tires, battery, clean the carburetors, clean the fuel tank, rebuild the petcock, change the oil, flush the brake fluid, treat the seat with lemon oil before sitting on it so it would not crack, clean the ground strap connection to the frame.ect..
I ran a batch of clean motor oil through the engine till it got hot.. I drained that oil over a powerful magnet to see what came out with the oil… The usual bits of clutch fiber, bits of grit, gum, soot, lots of non-magnetic particles probably from the clutch basket, the normal amount of magnetic material stuck to the magnet, nothing unusual..
I considered keeping the bike for a while because I always liked how the triples felt at low RPMs. They had a lot of grunt for their displacement.
but once I got it running, new tires, carburetors clean and in sinc, no bad vacuum diaphragms thank goodness.. I took it for a long ride that ended up being a short ride. I was very disappointed at how Stone Age it felt. I loved the look because it had the original maroon gas tank and side covers and they were in very good condition as was the seat. Everything was original on this machine. It looked great, but it was old,, The feel of the controls and the switches, the feel of the shifting, the feel of the brakes, the feel of the suspension, the way it tracked over bumps, the way it felt in slow speed maneuvers, it’s time had passed. I had become tainted/spoiled by modern motorcycles.. The same way I had become spoiled by my Moto Guzzi Norge .. I love Guzy‘s. I have already had four of them since 1979 and I keep them a long time. But after having my Norge, I tested an old SP 1000 guzzi that I used to have. And it just felt like a model T car compared to my Norge. So I didn’t buy it.
I was also a two-stroke fanatic back in the 70s. I road raced motorcycles, one of them was an RD 250 that I had won six championships on, two times national champion..I still have my muti championship winning machine sitting in the corner of my garage getting it’s well earned rest. But I located another one that was sitting, and I have enough parts to keep one running for the next 500 years including complete engines. So I bought this one that just needed a few things to get it up-to-roadworthiness. I put my KONI shocks on it, my clubman bars, went through the carbs and suspension, and when I took that out for a ride after working on it. I wondered, how the hell could I have ever ridden this slow poke.. it was running correctly, it started right up, it would idle at a very low RPM so the crank seals were good and the compression was good. It was in time, I backed the oil pump down because they were horribly rich from the factory, I put the guard on the advance ramp on the oil pump that the 1974 RDs did not have. It just felt like I was riding on a playground sawhorse. It would redline every gear like it should, it didn’t have a broken reed valve or an air leak.. it was just slow. They only had 28 hp, the 350s only had 38.. it was also very noisy even though the stock baffles were in place and the airbox was intact with the stock air filter and the lid on which is how they run best. I had forgotten what an air cooled to stroke sounds like with all that piston rattle. It didn’t rattle anything like the Kawasaki 500 triples with their wrist pins on the center of the piston which promoted piston rattle, but it still was some thing I hadn’t heard for decades..
I knew immediately I could not ride this thing after having had better. At the time I resurrected that RD, I was riding a BMW K 1200 LT, a Suzuki V Strom 1000, and a Moto Guzzi V 11 sport..
so the Yamaha XS 750, just like the RD, just like the Kawasaki 500 triple i brought back from the grave,the yamaha XV920 RH (chain drive) i resuscitated. I could not go back. Nostalgia is one thing, but the performance of nostalgic motorcycles is disappointing..
but I recently made a step backwards slightly. I had a BMW K 1200 LT with ABS brakes. I experienced ABS brakes on a gravel downhill road. They did not work at all on that gravel, nothing. So I got rid of that machine to go to something that had basic brakes..My moto guzzi Norge also had abs breaks but there was a difference, you could turn them off at the push of a button and just have conventional brakes. That’s why I went from the BMW to the Norge.. but I wanted another big super Turing machine so I bought a Honda GL 1800 Goldwing… have you ever changed the air cleaner on a GL 1800 Goldwing??? that is a five hour job in a Honda dealership at $125 an hour. I did the job myself because I thought that was ridiculous. But having done the job, that’s just about right. Everything on the Goldwing was buried. The thought of having to do a clutch or alternator or water pump or somethings serious to repair on that Goldwing made me get rid of it. It was a perfect machine, but it was just so difficult to even get at anything to work on it to do maintenance..
so I went to a simpler machine that I have already had two off and now I’m on my third Yamaha venture. A 2008 royal star venture that I can get to the starter, the alternator, the slave cylinder for the clutch, the water pump, and the clutch, without removing any plastic. I can practically work on all of those components using just a tool kit if I had to hit the side of the road.
so as much as I am not in love with nostalgic older machines. Going to machines with ABS and traction control, having had a sample of that, I went backwards to something I could service so I would not have to marry the dealer..
I recently retired. I had eight motorcycles today I retired. Now I’m down to just two, because I want to get my 1958 mga that I have owned since I was 15 years old back on the road.. I had a two week body restoration paint job, and the engine rebuilt in 1974, and then I put it in my mother’s garage and never drove it since. I do turn it over with the hand crank to circulate the oil, and I had pulled the spark plugs out and squirt oil in the cylinders every once in a while to keep the bores from rusting .. I have it covered and sitting on blocks in my heated garage.. I drove that car all through high school.. I have had my experience with Lucas electrics, starters, voltage regulators, positive ground.. but I’m looking forward to it after 108 motorcycles - ( so far)
if you ever see a Yamaha XS 750 or 850 for sale, run the other way almost as fast as you should run from a single mother that says hello to you…Buy an XS 650 instead, just make sure the ground strap from the battery to the frame has a good connection or it will use the entire wire harness as a ground and melt the wire harness eventually..
of course I was a mechanic when these Yamaha triples showed up, and we only saw the ones that were having problems which was a very short list, mainly second gear.. The engagement dogs would round off, and then next thing you know it’s missing shifts and jumping out of gear when you hit the gas and let off.. we started telling customers to baby that shift into second gear and remember to take your foot off the shift lever completely after every shift. They never made it to the top of the drag racing chart specifications because they have a shaft drive. A chain or belt returns 98% of the energy between the engine and the rear wheel. The best shaft drives or in the 85% return range. Then there’s the shaft final drive housing itself which hampers suspension compliance. When you’re on the gas, the suspension does not want to compress, pinion gear is trying to climb the ring gear. Plus having the power flow change direction 90° two times steals a lot of power. You will never see a Shaft drive MotoGP machine from a factory that actually wants to win.. from a maintenance standpoint, shafts are the way to go, but not performance. You’ll never see a serious competitive motocross bike with shaft drive either for that reason. Honda tried fluid drive and they had machines out there being tested back in the 70s.. Yamaha actually had 2 Wheel Drive, and so did Rokon.. another issue with shaft drive problems or limitations is, you can only get 8° of rotation out of a u joint.. I don’t know how many degrees a modern motocross machine swingarm travels, but I would not be a bit surprised that it’s close to 30°. You can have course have double U joints.. but you’re never gonna come up with anything better than a chain/ belt for efficiency and suspension compliance
Interesting and varied motorcycle history you have had sir
TLDR.
Suzuki...GS650G...GS850G...GS1000G...GS1100G All shaftdrive all 2nd gear eaters. 9 YEARS as a courier telling my boys get XJ650 or XJ750 if doing the long hauls we did and CX500 for city. GT550 or GT750 Kawasaki ate timing chains and cracked frames.
I was a Yam mechanic back. In the 80s . Had a beautiful Z900 A4 at the time ❤️ Some years later I bought a full power VMax ……..guess what gear failed 🙈
I'll bet you're also going to be disappointed with your 1958 MG when you drive it again after restoration
My XS750 was faultless. Never let me down in 27000 miles. I went on to the 850 and it was even better and did 35000 miles. Zero problems. Maybe I just looked after them.
It’s often the way with these things
I wonder I owner care doesn’t play s big part,. An engine with poor oil supply issues will survive for years with proper care
I had 2 XS750s they were great bikes !
Loved my XS750. Never had a problem.
27,000 miles???
You consider that a high mileage?
I had a 1969 Triumph Trident that did four times that as my first bike!
My first street bike was the silver and blue XS750 with every touring accessory and many aftermarket accessories. I was a teenager and the envy of all my friends. Lived in Daytona Beach and tourists wanted photos of it all the time. I wasn’t great on maintenance but the bike was flawless for the 17,000 miles I put on it in 4 years.
When Yamaha came out with the XS750 in 1977, i was 17 years old auf i always wanted to own one. 45 years later, in early 2022, i am 62 and purchased my first XS750 with 110k kilometers on the odo. We traveled together through Germany, Czech Republic and Poland. Only minor issues, caused by the age of the bike. It is a perferct traveller, very reliable, relaxing sound and invits you to ride with moderat speed and enjoy the trip. Low fuel consumption and the 24 liter tank takes you 400-500 km. In comparison with my 87' XJ900 and my 95' TDM850, the XS750 is always a adequate choice for the next trip. I hope to ride the bike another 6000 km this year. I will not sell the bike as long i am able to sit on a motorcycle.
Well if it’s been around this long any issues should have been sorted long ago
34 bikes here My XS750 had no problems BUT it was one of the most boring rides...Flat power ...heavy....Dull....In isolation maybe...but thats like Shreks girlfriend cast-offs!!
Fantastic, the seed was planted in the mind and finally came to bloom 45 years later, that's remarkable, true love never dies.
A TH-cam video on the subject of buying bikes we yearned for would be a major success.
Well done Michael.
Thank you for giving hope on restoring my xs750 special and turning it into a hard tail chopper, it's my first bike and I hear nothing but good things about triples.
Had an XS750 Yam in the early 80's - it was the one with the larger tank similar to the 850. Absolutely loved it but 'marital issues' forced me to have to sell it. I loved the styling and thought it handled well, and I loved the shaft drive. Loved the sound of the 'three' when pushing on. Wish I had it now (in my 70's!). I would hanker after the Sunbeam, now but finances would preclude me having one.
I always liked the Yamaha styling I though it looked really up to date compared to the T160
Should have done better I feel
I had one too. Nice bike. Only issue was it jumping out of gear. Had to get it repaired, out of warrenty, before selling it.
A friend of mine had one and I recall how, under acceleration, the rear of the bike lifted up as well as the front due to the torque from the shaft drive.
Worked in Yamaha shop in Southern California in the early 80's l don't recall the Xs750 models having to many problems even in the hot conditions common in Socal. The Xs850 could seize the center cylinder in hot conditions though.
basically just an XS1100 with one less cylinder. They were excellent bikes.
I had a '79 Yamaha XS750SP. Completely reliable. It would cruise at 115 mph (legal in Montana, no daytime speed limit back then). I sandblasted the steels in the clutch and added shims under the clutch springs. The clutch was a little stiff and grabby, but it never slipped again. Tuning was key to performance. All the bike magazines said a 650 4-cyl Kawasaki would blow me into the weeds. Two friends had the 650 Kaws; they never had a chance against me. I put over 80,000 miles on that bike including a 14,000 mile cross country cruise towing a trailer. The reason I got rid of the bike was parts availability.
Yamaha’s missed opportunity to do something different I think.
Loved my 1978 XS750 - even at 105,000 miles it felt great to ride. Admittedly it was my first big bike. The only problem I had was loom wear at the headstock. Loved the distinctive triple howl at high revs. Kept it a couple of years until I was rammed from behind into the path of heavy traffic - the driver who hit me admitted he was changing the tape and didn't notice the roundabout at the end of the dual carriageway. - I got a car after that but I'd love to have another XS750 one day although there is no way I'd daily commute by bike again - too many half asleep / morning after drivers these days.
Amazing how inconsistent Yamaha was at that time, some bikes were great some terrible, I wonder why some survived. As a foot not I regularly commute on s motorcycle, it does require a certain mental approach tbh
I worked at a Yamaha dealer back then. The 78 E model was the best of the lot. They would run dead even with a 900 Kaw.
@@williamnichols429 time ridden both and the only way an xs750 would be dead even with a 900 law would be if they were both pushed off beachyhead!
I had an XS750 from new, I loved it. The reason it didn’t sell as well as it’s rivals was because Yamaha dared to be different, three cylinders and shaft drive. Most people seemed to go for the UJM four cylinder chain drive bikes, which I found dull. Possibly a sales disaster but I would say an engineering success.
There does seem to have been variable quality control at that time, if you get are a good one happy days but a poor one can have a number of problems. A shame as I thought they were a very nice looking bike
Well Triumph sell a lot of three cylinder bikes today as do Yamaha so I think there was a bit more to it than being different, there were quite a few 3 cylinder bikes around during 70s so it wasn’t that different
@@bikerdood1100 Well there was the Rocket 3/Trident and a few two strokes, but in the ‘big four’ Japanese 750-1000 market at the time the XS750 was released it was all chain drive inline fours so Yamaha absolutely bucked the trend with a shaft drive triple. The other bikes cited in the report as having similarly ‘clunky’ drivelines were all shaft drive too. Sometimes I think content creators go for filler rather than killer subject matter that hasn’t (in my humble opinion) been particularly well though out. Everyone else is of course entitled to their own opinions.
@@martinhaskell376 I knew a couple of other people with shaft drive XSs, one a 750 and the other an 1100. Both had gear selection issues and needed gearbox rebuilds but, knowing the riders, it was most likely user-related, rather than design or engineering. Always liked the XS750 myself, but it was a bit too modern for me.
@@martinhaskell376 the XS1100 was intruced in australia, and had some success when converted from shaft drive to chain... bullet proof motor.... just an opionin, but heavy motorcycle.🙄cheers from australia.👍
Had a number of friends who had XS750s, don’t remember transmission problems on them, my 850 triple had about 70,000kms on it when I sold it, the only issue I ever had was a seal go on the driveshaft, it was an easy fix. The valves rarely needed shim adjustment, mine was a great bike.
Had a real mixed bag of stories about the Xs
a few XS750s and XS1100s had a shift-fork sticking problem, not serious though. You just had to shift again and the problem was very intermittent.
Had XS750 in 78 with polaris fairing. Being three cylinder it was very smooth, quit different to the 4 cylinder bikes. Never encountered the problems regarding oil supply but I always changed the oil every 2k miles. In short I loved owning it and apart from being on the heavy side, the three cylinder engine with shaft drive made it a pleasure to ride and own.
I’m sure regular oil changes have made a difference
A testament to some excellent engineering. There are inherent challenges to designing a smooth three-cylinder four-stroke engine.
I had a red XS750E on an ' A ' plate ( A31 VML ) in 1986 and always loved it and did more than 20,000 trouble free miles .Cheap and cosmetically challenged , I restored it as part of a feature in ' Classic & Motorcycle Mechanics ' when parts were at give away prices including exhausts at many Yamaha dealers and was subsequently featured again before parting with it. .I agree with what you say , although the transmission was more ' agricultural ' than a GS 850G Suzuki I had owned previously , it oozed character and the yowl as you opened the throttle wide always brought a wide grin !.Will always have a soft spot for them .
A great thing about triples is that wild exhaust note
I'm still riding my 1975 Kawasaki Z1 900 I bought used for $1100 in 1977. It's a great bike then and now with routine maintenance and rebuild of components like forks and suspension when needed.
Maintenance is all important and it’s this which as massive effect on reliability
First time I’ve heard of a zx10 as a disaster. Might be a uk only thing giving carb icing. The real disaster was the preceding model. After the success of the 900 the GPZ1000RX was more powerful but much heavier and with poor handling. The ZX10 was a far superior bike
Well I climate can be a bit crap
Yep. No probs with the ZX10 here in Australia.
was a problem they fixed and they sold loads of them so what he is saying is not really correct
I remember the first GPZ900's having carb icing problems, these were fixed with the de-icing kit, so I'm surprised Kawasaki made the same mistake so soon afterwards.
Had two 900s two zzr1100s and a zx 10 no problems on any and I live in Northern England the zx10 was the fastest and most comfortable of all of them
I had a new silver, grey '76 XS750 and it served me very well for a number of years. It was always dependable. It did however, develop a serious base gasket, oil leak after a few years. I had that repaired and it remained a fine bike. It never let me down. Not too exciting or high performing but a good highway bike which I also used to ride to work in the city and for pleasure trips. In Canada we ride 500 miles/800km for a warm-up ride. 😊
No doubt owner care makes a big difference and some times you just get a good one
Calling BS on that statement. here in Canada bikes are recreational vehicles and used for the few short summer months when temperature and road conditions allow. The majority of riders do less than 5000 km per year.
I owned two 1978 XS750's one from 79-81 and the other from 82-84. The first used a lot of engine oil, the second was fine. Both had the contact breaker ignition which once set up by my local dealer gave no trouble at all. I found both clutches fine to use. Both bikes brakes were wooden in feel, but did a reasonable job of stopping it and I fitted braided lines and sintered pads, just becoming available at that time. Because the shaft jacked up the rear under acceleration there was an art to riding them, and the throttle had to be used very smoothly to avoid jerkiness in lower gears around town. In all I did around 30k miles on them including 651 miles in one day, to Lands End and back. That's when I found the saddle was only good for about 500 miles 😁 Not a perfect machine, but characterful and a real riding pleasure.
Shafties are great once you make that mental adjustment
Yes they are, I just wish there were more bikes with shafts around today
Succeeded by the yam Xj 650 then 750 and 900 shafties all very good alrounders enjoyed my 650
@@karlvanboxel561 You’re quite right about the XJs. I had the XJ650 after the second XS750, from 85 to 89. It was the turbo version and was a better bike than the XS, though less character and the clutch wasn’t quite up to the job if you really used full power. It was probably my favourite bike of that era, but I might be a bit biased as I bought it as an insurance write off and spent 6 months rebuilding it 😁
@@markpearce5793 BMW or Moto Guzzi. . .
I have always heard good things about the Yamaha XS750. I heard they were extremely reliable. even though Yamaha has it's and downs. it's a shame that the Sunbeam faired so poorly. it seemed like a unique design. BSA probably didn't want it to drag their main line of motorcycles down. I owned a 1980 Honda CB750K with a full vetter fairing with lowers. that was color matched with the bike. and I hated the chain drive. it would make a person's hands sting on long rides.
There really were problems were the XS which were widely reported at the time, Yamaha seemed to have suffered with quality control particularly early on . Some people have responded with great stories about the bike, some terrible. I liked the Sunbeam concept but it’s styling probably appeals to modern riders used to bobber style bikes than it ever did in its day. It may have done better with more robust transmission but it wasn’t what post war riders seemed to want. Post war British bikers in particular were a conservative bunch are generally stirred away from anything different, shame
@@bikerdood1100 Most of the people I know that have owned the XS750 had good things to say. one in particular he rode his all the time. and he almost no problems with his. and it had a ton of miles on it. and the others that did have problems they were minor. none of them had major problems.
I've got over 180K miles on my 77 Xs750. other than a slight 2nd gear issue, it runs like a champ. even after putting it down at 60 mph in the dirt. new bars, new cluster, new headlight, and she was off for more adventures. love that bike. still have it, even though my daily rider has been changed several times since then.
Such a mixture of stories with XS definitely a love hate thing few middle ground
@@bikerdood1100 I recently picked up an 81 Harley FLH, and the Xs750 seems like a bike 2 generations ahead of it in terms of build quality, ride quality, and just overall dependability, despite actually being 5 years it's senior, as mine was an initial production bike, built in August of 76.
I still have my 1979 Yamaha XS750 Special.....It's a great bike if you're a taller rider, and I've found it to be bulletproof....Of the bike itself, the heads will run cooler if the casting burrs are removed from the air passages (using a drill makes for easy work) and use the optional air scoop.....Biggest mistake I made was installing a set of MAC 3 into1 headers....These set up a harmonious vibration that ended when the center header weld broke at the flange within about 90 days.....MAC refused to warranty them , even though it was just the down pipes.....Other than that, I've just never been let down by this bike and I've ridden countless miles comfortably ......It's been 'resting' in my shop many years now as my attention moved back to my Triumph TR3A sportscar that my wife and I can enjoy together ....People can be critical, but it's usually lack of maintenance and finesse in operating that causes most machine failures........... John (west coast, Can.)
Definitely some quality control issues at Yamaha at that time. Bike always seemed a good design but Clearly quality control issues were not what they should have been at times
@@bikerdood1100 Well,...I guess mine was built on a good day, when everyone was in a good mood......Wish I could say the same for the folks at MAC headers.....
My brother had a XS750, drove it whole year round even in the snow never a problem. It was the version with the 24 liter tank and we went a lot to France I with my bike and he could drive much futher than me with that big tank.
Such a variety of stories with the XS from terrible to terrific
The xs750 could be tuned to produce a lot of power and the shaft drive was bullet proof. Great bike!
Great but only when put together right, which it often wasn’t
I think so too
Personal experience doesn't agree with you. I once had an XS750SE, which first had the common fail of popping out of 2nd. When i finally fixed it I went for a testride and exploded the engine end of the shaft drive.
@@mrchopper91 You can't design for an inept mechanic
I had one and found it to be a nice machine!..
"The machine is a 3 cylinder triple"
Brilliant narration.
Yes yes I know only spotted it put it out , everyone’s a critic, well at least it’s technically correct
@@bikerdood1100 Following in your footsteps criticizing the critic.
First, get a better microphone/audio mixer. You are very hard to understand.
Second, judging from the number of responses from Yamaha triple people I read below, You may have been a bit hasty calling The XS750/850 'fails'.
About the time I changed careers from being a mechanic at a Yamaha shop, I bought an new 1978 XS750D - red over silver. I didn't sell it till 2014. It wasn't perfect, but it was pretty, made a glorious sound running a ton, and never left me stranded.
Some of the reliability things I did see:
The clips holding the fuses under the seat would break from the vibration. Yes, it had perfect primary balance but it had a nasty side-to-side rocking couple.
The side-stand pivot wore out from supporting the weight.
If you pushed it hard through left-handers the center-stand tang would drag. If you drug it hard enough you broke the center-stand. This was a pretty common issue on bikes of that era.
The motor eventually developed enough blow-by that the crankcase vent could not handle it. I ended up redesigning the vent. Related to this, one of the pressed-in plugs where they drilled an oil passage in the head started weeping oil.
The cooling on the center cylinder was always marginal for really high performance. It was just fine for fast touring, but if you pushed it too hard for too long you would cause issues.
Second gear was always slow and clunky and if you forced it to shift faster than it wanted to go you would break it. Give it enough time when shifting and it would outlive you.
Eventually the slides and bodies of the CV carbs wear out making them hard to synchronize. Again, this was common on bikes of that era.
Some of the good stuff:
Initially I checked the valve lash regularly. It only needed needed the valves adjusted once, right after break-in.
Aside from two or three changes of gear oil, the shaft drive was totally maintenance free. A joy on a trip when compared to the chain drives on bikes of that era.
The clutch and bottom-end were bulletproof. They used essentially the same components in the 1100 four.
It had very solid handling and mostly felt like a locomotive till you got to the limit. Even at the limit it didn't get nasty, just wallowed in a way that said 'enough'.
Yamaha really tried to put all the latest tech on these bikes:
The triple disk brakes were God's own anchors.
The CV carbs gave wonderful throttle response.
It featured one of the first adjustable front forks on a sport-touring bike.
I think this was the first production bike with self-canceling turn signals.
For the day these were above average in reliability and features and about average in performance. I'm clearly biased, but I wouldn't call the Yamaha XS triples fails...
Perhaps you should have read more responses. The Xs was a real mixed bag some responses have contained some real horror stories, I’m working on the mice incidentally I’m a health care worker not a professional journalist
I had a Yamaha XS 750S and discovered some other flaws not mentioned . . Mine was the 1979 burgundy version and I loved the Ferrari-like zoom sound it made , smooth virtually no vibrations and great for touring . That first summer straight away I went on a July tour from Ontario ,Canada across the USA and deep into Mexico ( and back !) where I discovered that the engine detested the low octane Mexican fuel of the day and showed it by detonating and running poorly or stopping . A manual cam chain tensioner needed regular adjustments but soon the single-row roller chain needed replacement in the second year at 45000km . That turned out to become a regular event-spacing for that process . At 100000km engine compression went goofy low , so with a Clymer shop manual in hand and basic tools I tore off the head and cylinders and got the barrels honed and put in new rings . That repair seemed to do the trick for another 50000km . Along the way the primary chain began slapping the cases and needed replacement , even though being a multi-row Hy-vo type. With the head off I saw that the N7Y spark plugs had a very long threaded end which still remained more than 1cm up in the plug hole ,far away from the combustion chamber . . I bet that had something to do with detonation ! I have allways kept the oil levels filled to the proper marks and changed them at recommended intervals .
Another irritant was that the "resistor " spark plug caps were prone to short out in rain and road spray often stopping the bike, a problem I solved by replacing the small resistors with stubs of heavy copper wire .And a final joy killer was the exhaust system which has double walled header pipes so as not to cause the chrome on the exposed surface to discolour from heat ( O, perish the thought !) .After a number of years the inner pipes rusted through the welds holding the ends and let the remains bounce and rattle around destroying the Ferrari effect . With a recurrence of low compression and all the rattling I had had enough and parked the bike at 143000km in 1984.
It was a fun bike but Yamaha clearly had not yet found their skills in four stroke engine design ( I have owned other Yamahas later and have no complaints against the brand ) . It did teach me a lot about motor mechanic work and the shaft drive was flawless , even the "jacking" on turning the throttle grip was fun . Even today I use some of the very Yamaha valve clearance shims in exchange when adjusting the valves on my Kawasaki KLR because , like some Suzuki shims, they are of identical specifications . And I learned to appreciate disc brakes and tubeless tires .
There does seem to be a bit of a floor shopping list from bike the bike
I had an xs 750 I did thousands of miles on it including thrashing it to the IOM from kent 2up in 89. I dont have a bad word to say about them one of the best bikes I had . It went well sounded lovely an took a good hiding. When I eventually sold it there was still nothing wrong with it.
As it seems to be , if you get a good one then they are a joy, very variable though judging by other owner experiences
I worked at a Triumph dealer when the TT600 and the new Bonneville rolled out. Each dealer was to send a mechanic to special training for the dealer to be eligible to receive the new models. I attended training but the Bikes were already being distributed regardless of training. The nature of the dealer network in North America at the time was inconsistent. Many dealers didn’t prep the bikes correctly and just uncrated and sold them. We were getting tt600 owners bringing their bikes 100miles or more for warranty complaints. All were set up related. If it was set up correctly with the stock exhaust, it wasn’t bad. It was just like any other 600 in that you had to spool it up to get results. The FI wasn’t worth the added expense when a ZX600 with a mild jet kit could run circles around it for the money. The net result from the TT was Triumph moving on from Sagem to Keihin FI, which is more tunable on all Triumph models that followed. The best version of the TT series was the Speed Four and then the Hooligan Daytona 650…..which got rid of leftover parts and blazed the trail for the 675. Both excellent buys in todays market. Just don’t crash one. You won’t find parts. Thanks for the video. Also agreed with the Yamaha triple commentary. The latter models were the best, but the fours overshadowed the XS triples.
Almost like Triumph rushed the bike out , the first uk models had really poor fueling
A son & I have Speed Fours (bough second-hand 2020, 2021) and love them to bits. I also have a 2006 Daytona 675, a 2012 Bonnie T100 and a '93 Trident with a sidecar attached.
I can say, from experience, that it was the 900r that had the carb-icing issue, my first one did it, the engine would cut out. I had two ZX10s later on that didn’t have that problem, at least Kawasaki recalled the GPz 900s and fitted carb heaters.
I can only refer to the experiences of those I’ve met, I looked after a Zx10 owner who did have issues
Water cooling and cabs
Not always a good combination
First of all, I don't consider crotch rockets, with or without fairings, as legitimate street motorcycles. I owned a bought new 1980 Yamaha XS750 Special for almost 5 years and just over 40,000 miles. It was 100% trouble free, and was a great looking bike. Very fast and very comfortable. It had a great riding position, and shaft drive. I replaced it with a low mileage garage kept 1980 XS1100 Special, and rode that for 7 years and over 50,000 miles. The Yamaha Specials from that era were my favorite motorcycles of all time. From the XS400 Special to the XS1100 Special, they were all wonderful and beautiful bikes.
Sports bikes aren’t the most practical to be sure, but to each their own I suppose
130000km on my 82 XS 1100. Had to shim 2nd up at 50000km. Could cruize at 160 all day at 6000rpm
Back in 1977 the XS 750 was a good bike, bit expensive, had it's quirks, but trust me compared to it's rivals it held it's own. It had a tendency to overheat on slip roads after a 3 hour motorway thrash, and the gearboxes did give trouble on the early ones, but the very fact that you could do a fast ( over 110mph) motorway trash in 1977, two up with sodden tents etc. They were very stable and inspired confidence. I really liked them, but ultimately the GS 850 and GT 750 would prove to be more memorable and enduring bikes. Probably still a good buy though.
Yes I think the early problem bikes have long been scrapped
I had two ZX10's early on and loved them both. Great tourers and mine were exceptionally good on fuel too. I'm fairly sure that the ten was produced with heated carbs from the start. Both of mine had them and I knew the owners from new of both bikes and they never had retrospective work done on them. I never experienced carb icing on either but having said that, they weren't the easiest things to ride in snow on our appalling Devon roads so I used a CX or DT in winter. The Ten was rushed out to replace the not too well received RX and itself was replaced within 3 years by the ZZR1100. I still have 4 ZX10's tucked away in my barn and keep promising myself I will get them back on the road before I cark it! Open to offers though.....
Well I can only speak to experiences of the owners I’ve met and what happened to them, hade a patient back in the late 80s who had an accident on his Zx10. Likely effected the whole family of engines, early water cooled bikes did pose a few challenges
Great video. I had 2 XS750's 1st was a 78 XS750D my first big bike, loved it had it a year with no probs then it got nicked. 2nd a couple bikes later was a 80 XS750E which after a year started to jump out 3rd gear. You couldn't give these bikes away then early 80's sold to a guy (£350) who knew the problem but just wanted it for work, & thrashed it into the ground! Fond memories of that 1st XS.
Gear issues seem to be common
Gear issues seem to be a common theme
@@bikerdood1100 only if you hammered (drag raced the crap out of) them. Then the gear dogs wore so it wouldn't stay in gear. XS11s and the big Kawasakis and Suzukis had the same problem.
Had a 76 model XS750 that took me everywhere here in Australia. Brakes felt a bit dull but a change of pad type sorted that. Done around 90 thousand kilometres before selling to a mate who rode it for about 4 or 5 years before selling it. First time I ever heard of one having a heavy/clunky gear change.
Oh they were very variable and some early models could be nightmares or great .
Yamaha lucky dip it seems. I do think people who rode em hard hit trouble early
I had a 1980 Yamaha XS850 triple - very plush ride and very reliable except the automatic fuel taps quickly fail, and the 2nd and 5th gears failed early if you shifted w/o pulling the clutch all the way in. Main problem was TERRIBLE/Dangerous handling above 55 mph. The XS1100 also had terrible handling. I have a 1983 Suzuki GS1100 and it handles like a 1965-75 English bike (very well) only 100 lb heavier. The extra weight disappears above 40 mph. A lovely machine. And cheap to buy nowadays.
Well you didn’t sell me on the xs750 there I have to say 😂
I never recall carb icing being an issue with the ZX-10. It arose with the earlier GPz900r (ZX900 Ninja) from which the ZX-10 was derived. Kawasaki sorted the problem out quickly with a recall and a modification which was fitted on all production bikes from 1985 onwards. I think you may be getting the models mixed up here.
Well I remember it in the press at the time and early in my career I looked after a guy who claimed at least that it happened to him
@Beyond The bubble. .Yup. More ‘internet’ knowledge about faults. Luckily, now a few thousand will be experts on ZX-10 carb icing that never really existed.
Yes my ZX10 outside never had carb Icing ? Dyno Jet stage 3 kit fitted and an extra 25bhp , total monster even today I wipe out latest tech ! I have had 3 ZX10s over the years I owned a bike shop in the 90s , have one still outside now in black and silver the best colour !
Exactly ...
@@curtisducati mine too Vance and hines exhaust K&N filter air box mods don't know what it was making but was faster than either of my ZZRs
I had a XS750D from new, drove for almost 10k miles before being parked. Mostly reliable but would pop out of 2nd gear because of weak shift forks which was replaced under warranty once, second time I left it be. The other downsides were the huge single muffler that would often drag on the right side and the bike was heavy. Loved the alloy wheels and shaft drive, I put on a Vetter fairing which made winter riding and freeway speeds tolerable.
Japanese bikes were particularly crazy in the 70s. Lots of power and high bars made getting anywhere near their top speed was an impossibility
I had 2 xs750. Used them as a courier bike with not much problems 145000 & 128000 miles on them til I sold them on. Just oil & filter changes was good enough. Both were did models.
You wonder if problems aren’t often liked to poor maintenance schedules
The only thing that hindered the XS from being success was the 3 cyl design.
Market wanted a 4 cyl from 600cc upwards.
That bike was rock solid though.
Yamaha produced decades anward shaft drive, esp their hottest ever bike was shaft driven as well, the VMax 1200 and 1700
That and the odd issue particularly around transmission, modern Yamaha triples seem to be very popular. Has the market changed or the bike ?
I simply loved xs750 it was a nice bike no second gear problem slight oil leak from base gasket but hey the engine had not been apart for 35 years
When you get a goodun you get a goodun as they say
I owned a 78 Yam triple with the same paint job you had here. I’ve seen red ones as well over the decades. Anyway my XS750 was faultless as I never had a problem with it what so ever until. I’d had the bike for two yrs and my local Yam dealer did all the services on it. However, I got posted interstate (RAAF) and had to find another mechanic. I found the local Yam dealer there and when it was due it’s 30k service took it to them. When I picked the bike up it sounded like a chaff cutter. I asked the reason for the noise and they said the came chain was loose and it couldn’t be tightened ( now this bike always sounded nice and you basically had to put your head near the barrel to hear the chain ). I then asked if the cam chain was not a problem when I dropped it off why would it now. He then told me that previous mechanics didn’t know what they were doing. I then showed him my owners manual with all the past services. He dismissed that and sort of grunted to which I replied you f..king idiot you have f..Jed up a perfectly good motorbike. You should be hung drawn and f..king quartered. I tried to get it fixed at another place, but this idiot had totally f..ked a great bike.
Can’t always rely on a dealer then or know.
I had the x5 750 and I put 50,00 miles on it. The exhaust rotted out early but headers gave more power and sounded great. I loved the shaft drive, low maintenance.
Shaft drive is a great feature, sadly lacking on bikes these days
A bit of trivia about the XS750: Yamaha collaborated with Porsche on the engine design. Also, in the video one of the bikes had wire wheels. As far as I know wire wheels were only available in the domestic (Japanese) market. I know of a couple of people in the US that found the proper hubs in Japan and had wheels made from them.
Yes I’ve only ever seen cast wheels. Certainly not in Europe
I bought a XS-750 f 1979m model. . . Yes the second gear was fragile if you'd rev it past 5,000 rpm in first but I beleive the problem originated in the long throw of the shifter betwen first and second gear. . . Ride was exemplary, comfortable like a sofa , , As for power, amongst it's pears of the year, it was the fastest of them all, japaneeses 750 cc cousins . . Not talking about the torque output that was unmatched by any of them and the so sweet sound of tripples engines 😊
The Xs could have been so good
The Xs could have been so good
The Xs could have been so good
The Xs could have been so good if they’d got it spot on
@@bikerdood1100 It was a great machine with one terrible blunder. . And with a Kerker pipe and a Supartrap silencer; the sound was AWSOME 😁
My TT600, a red and grey model, was the best handling sports bike I've been on.
I can't remember many problems with flats spots but it was a bit frumpy looking
No it was good once sorted
Why they released with the fueling so out is a mystery, fueling on mine was great
very interesting . I enjoyed learning about this side of biking. Thank You.
Everyone has 5he odd skeletons in their cupboards
@@bikerdood1100 I remember looking at the XS 650 IN 1980 and thinking what a great bike it could be with 3 cylinders and shaft drive too. It had the potential to be a big seller.
I've owned big Kawasaki's (GPz, GPX and ZZR's) since the mid 80's and never once had "carb icing" problems. Biggest issue was the flat spot at 4K rpm on the ZZR1200. Fixed with Dynojet kit!
No problems with the ZZR1400PS aside from Kawasaki cancelling it in 2020...
Immensely powerful beasts all
You may be a little harsh on the XS750. In period, it was well regarded. Via the XS850, it was Yamaha's learning curve towards the XS1100 and thence onward into UJM territory.
The market was less defined at that time, so many new models may have seemed an odd fit. But the XS750 was by no means an engineering disaster.
I liked them especially the 850 , but the do generate a very mixed type of experience unfortunately
@@bikerdood1100 Well, the newest ones are around forty years old.... So there will be some iffy ones out there. And back in the day Yamaha were late to the UJM party. I was a courier in London for a few years in the mid-80s and there were usually a couple of XS triples on the rank in any firm.... struggling on with a shitty top box strapped to the seat. It was not a GS750, but it was not a disaster. 😊
My first job was for a company called Rediffusion, in Wolverhampton. They were situated in the old Sunbeam factory, and, apparently, when they took it over, there were still plenty of parts left in the premises
Oh how I remember Rediffusion, it was the only way to get a decent TV signal in Stoke. Back in the day, fascinating that they were based in the old plant. It’s a small world, well the Midlands is small
@@bikerdood1100 They actually picked up an airwaves broadcast signal, amplified it, then delivered it to customers via copper-wire cable. I think that was all before colour TV: certainly I only saw colour telly a few years later
@@bikerdood1100 Incidentally, that was only one of the half-a dozen industries that have disappeared on me lol. I keep remembering another, every now and then. The wine and spirits department soldiers on, of course!
Did you ever use the tavern in the town?
@@stuartmorton1279 Yeah, not all the time, but now and again. Sunbeam motorcycles should be a hint - this was a *very* long time ago! lol
I had a 1981 XS 1100 RH Yamaha purchased new. I rode that bike hard and long distances as well. I still consider it one of the best bikes ever.
A friend owned an XS 850 triple and he used to flog that machine including doing decent wheelies and doughnuts. He pounded that machine until it faded from being constantly abused.
Great machines.
XS11 was a big old understressed engine
Sorry no legit fault on the XS 750. I had 2 750s and one 850 and really enjoyed the bikes. I don't think you know what you are talking about.
Sorry but they were notorious. I’m sure that some bikes were great but even looking at the responses to this video you can plainly see that the bikes could vary between great and terrible. Contemporary reports from the 70s really do seem to back this up. Wether it’s a mater of good maintenance or good fortune some machines are really good but unfortunately not all .
@@bikerdood1100 Thanks for the response. I was incredibly involved in this era of the US bike industry. I respectfully agree to disagree. I had my finger on the pulse of what was going on and base my comment on my personal experience and reading most of the motorcycle publications available at the time. Certainly the XS750 was not a perfect bike but very far from a "Disaster"
@@marshallbrowne5371 as an owner at the time I can confirm that the machine was an absolute disaster. That much is clearly documented. Yamaha did correct the horrendous engine faults as time went on. The later F model was in my opinion a great bike, and I suspect the 850 was too but I never rode one. I regret that Yamaha didn’t get it right first time, it was a handsome bike with a beautiful exhaust note.
@@johnedwards1685 Thanks for your input. I respect that was your experience. Maybe he should have specified the year of that he considered it a disaster. I have owned over 60 bikes from that era in my life and motorcycles were my life for many years.
Proud to see so many XS750 owners stick up for our bikes. Definitely not perfect, but checks a good chunk of the boxes for some of us.
It was a great looking bike but those early problems wrecked sales. Unfortunately
We do get quite a lot of contributors with not so happy experiences.
No doubt the 850 was a fair bit better
You’re bang on the money man! Make enough to live comfortably and sensibly (if that isn’t enough to make you happy) then nothing ever will be… 🙏
Nice sentiment 😎
Had 2 XS750s And 1 XS850 In The Passed
No Issues, Still Love Shaft Drive
I Own A Honda 1200DCT Crosstourer Now
So many varied stories about the Xs some good some very bad, particularly from the work shop guys
, hard to know it it was made worse by hard riding or variable build quality. Shaft drive is always a bonus, nice and clean
Wife had a new TT600 in 2000. Handled great with good brakes as you say. It ran a bit flat. Triumph supplied camshafts Etc FOC after I managed to speak to one of the head bods at Triumph one Christmas Eve.. Lacked a bit of power but wife liked it.
Mine was a 2002 model . It wasn’t perfect but I found it lovely to ride
After college when I had a little money I bought the 1978 Yamaha. I wanted a BMW but after riding a few and getting on the Yamaha the BMW's seemed like tractors in comparison. I loved that bike but a few months after buying it a drunk driver broadsided me in my van, thankfully missing the driver door by 12 inches. I sold the bike, as riding in a big city just spooked me. Now as a seasoned old fart and having had close to 200 different bikes your video brought back great memories of that Yamaha.
Good to have memories, glad it brought them back
xs 750 right as a ex yam tec in the 80.s and 90.s problems i saw were leaking head and base gaskets oil use over heating lots of primary drive chains loose and rattling. fork seals pitted fork legs. i had two of them and once sorted were good bikes. as good as most japanese bikes of the 80.s
Think the Japanese were really pushing the boundaries back then. Not too surprising that some times they had issues
Ditto Clavius Maximus's comments. Zero issues, with many in town and highway miles. Daily ridden to work and thrashed playing. Only noted problem was some head shake over 135mph, with a known Timken bearing remedy I never bothered implementing. Tedious maintenance may make a difference. Rode it from 1977 until I gave it to my brother in 2001.
Such a mixed bag of comments about the XS
Had a yammy xs 750 in 1977. Great sidecar bike.
Having shift drive is no bad thing for sidecar work
I would rather ride a mobility scooter than an XS with a side car.......or any bike with a side car.
Maybe it’s just me but I can’t understand your mumbling.🤔
It’s English. American I guess ? Americans think we all sound like the royal Family or something, thankfully not. We have many varied and interesting accents, if you struggle with mine then I wouldn’t visit Scotland without a translator 😂
I owned a 1979 XS 750 Yamaha for a few years. Yeah, the transmission was clunky and the shaft drive gave it the feeling that you'd get riding in a boat then letting off the gas, and you'd get that surfing feeling. Except the 750 rose at the rear as you accelerated. Tough bike, started every time I wanted to ride it as long as the battery was up for it. Never had a problem with the points.
A lot of the problems were seen in the early bikes but Yamaha build quality did seem to be quite variable back then with some bikes being very good and Somme quite the opposite
I'm 47 years old and have ridden many motorcycles of all makes and configurations but the only bike that had catastrophic engine failure whilst I was riding it was a 1990 Kawasaki ZX10,a con-rod failing and punching through the side of the block,a problem I later found that wasn't unknown on that family of engines and mainly the GPZ1000RX,ZX10 and the early incarnations of the ZZR1100.
Wow
That’s quite a blow up
Very rare to have something that Massive fail in modern machines
@@bikerdood1100 it sure was,it briefly scared the sh@t out of me,almighty bang like a sledgehammer had hit the bike then incredibly harsh vibration (and I use jackhammers at work!) ,it even moved the mirrors.Pulled over at the side of the road and it didn't take much to trace the oil to its escape route.I didn't believe that Japanese bikes ever blew up or broke down until that point!
I had an XS750 from new which I loved initially but eventually became disenchanted with the lack of power. Previous bike had been a Honda 750 F1 [the first one with a 4 in to 1 exhaust. Fabulous bike ]. After a few weeks I took the XS back to the dealer and asked them to have a look at the engine as it was pretty gutless. They obliged and when I picked it up they said sorry, nothing wrong with it, that's the way it is. I traded it in after a few months of ownership.
It shouldn’t have been gutless after all the power claims were pretty good by the standards of the day..Perhaps dealer just couldn’t be bothered to look at it
One of my sons bought a 2003 Triumph Speed Four 600cc. It has the same fuelling problems as the TT 600, but by judicial use of clutch slip and picking the right gear you can overcome that. I was sufficiently impressed to buy a 2006 model: this had improved fuelling, though it can still gets the hesitancy around 3000rpm but, as per my son's, it can be overcome. Both bikes are second hand being bought in 2002 & 2021. We love the bikes but accept that they are not really town bikes: fortunately we both live in rural areas.
That’s strange, because it should have been sorted by that model, my 2002 bike furled just fine.
Would be interesting to know where you are based. I wonder if they had problems meeting US emissions laws for example. Uk and Europe models don’t generally show such problems. Perhaps the dealer who sold the bikes didn’t update the map in the CPU. Interesting
@@bikerdood1100 NZ. My 2006 was in fact an import from Japan in 2020. My son's 2003 has been track tweeked (though he rides it on the road) with all sorts of mods. Mine is bog standard but I did get it serviced after buying it. I wasn't happy with that dealer, so next tune up and service I will travel the extra 30km each way to another Triumph dealer.
I still have my 1983 Yamaha 650 Seca Turbo with 4,000 miles on it We Love It 😊
Never heard of that model. Turbos were all the rage during the early 80s . Briefly
Honda had a CX500/650 Turbo in 82/83
Kawasaki had a GPZ750 turbo in 84
Yamaha and Suzuki had turbos at the same time
On a different note the XS650 Yamaha of the same time vibrated so badly that if you put it on the center stand and gave it some throttle it would bounce backwards
The perfect first date bike
That was my favorite when my had a Yamaha dealership in the 80s . Only a little kid back then but got to ride on the back of all the fastest bikes of the time my second favorite was the CBX. But that seca turbo was the coolest
The Yamaha Dealer ship owner had one I rode it & liked it only cost me $1900.00 straight from Japan. I gave my Dad my 1978 Yamaha XS 650 Special twin $600.00 with Electronic Ignition that we put on for $100.00 Also the XJ Turbo was in a James Bond Movie 😊
@@ericromeiro6688 are you from Pennsylvania?
Cheers mate! Just to add, my grand parents had an S7 with sidecar back in the 50’s. Didn’t see it except in photos but I’d love to have one. That and a nice GS750 😀
Lovely bikes the s7
A friend owns one and it makes a great sound
I’ve owned my S8 since I was 18. Now 55 years later is not quite as smart as the one in this video, 👍🤪
Judging by the comments my brand new XS750D ( 1st model ) was a lemon. I had mine less than 3 months and the engine blew up on me. I was told mine it was the first in Australia ( and possibly the world ) to seize. The motor even went back to Japan for evaluation. Now before you think I did something wrong, I didn't. It was run in and serviced by the book by a Yamaha dealer. They gave me a new motor and that wasn't much better. The valve train wore rapidly and the selector forks especially when changing into 2nd gear were stuffed. I eventually gave up and bought a Ducati 900. I have owned several bikes since and none of them have given me as much trouble as that 750 did. I have refused to own a Yamaha ever since.
Looks like the earlier the bike the worse it was
I bought a clean low km 1977 XS750 for $110 in 1983. It had a light tapping sound which turned out to be the middle big end. Undersized bearings were available down to 0.040" undersize. Unfortunately my crank was worn by more than 0.040".
I went on a wrecking yard hunt with micrometer in hand and looked at 6 or 7 cranks before I found one with a good middle crank pin. I also had an XS850 which notably had an engine oil cooler (the 750 didn't), as well as a ridiculously tall first gear. I later had a '78 XS1100, good solid bike.
They did a lot of work on the motor for the 850 to make it a better unit
after watching your 15 disasters I still miss the Yamaha TX750 produced from 1973 to 75... that's the real deal. XS750 problems were new to me too.
Well many machines have early problems it’s just wether it effects the bikes reputation, even the CX500 have early crank failures
ZX10 never had carb icing that was the GPZ900R and some GPZ1000RX which both had the heated carbs recall. The issue also never occurred on motorways cruising it only happened when the carbs were hard shut for a period after acceleration due to freezing of the atomised mixture as flow rate changed.
Down hills likely.
@@bikerdood1100 I had it on my 900R coming into a roundabout on a cold morning which was rather inconvenient!
My X's 750 was totally reliable after 3years of thrashing the crap our of it.
One of the few Bikes I miss owning.
Really do get such a mixture of reports about those bikes some very good some very bad
Had an XS750 (with a T suffix reg.), loved the motor and the looks, but sadly could not say the same of the handling. At speed in a straight line it would develop a rapid wobble at the rear end which would transfer its way forwards over about 8 to 10 seconds (a bit like the way a dog shakes itself, but in the opposite direction), this cycle would keep repeating every minute or so, but never made the bike unstable. Bitch number ONE was the way it would skid the rear wheel when changing down under deceleration such as approaching a junction.
Speaking as a rider of a lot of shafties
Wobbles can some sometimes relate to worn shaft bearings, crap suspension is of course always a possibility
I owned a 1977 XS750, purchased new. Worst bike I ever owned. I got hit by the oil supply problem. The cam chain wore really bad and made a big racket. Had to adjust it weekly. I bit me on a 3 week tour by slipping a cog. Ran poorly most of the trip, then died before I could get home. The chain skipped even more cogs. I had it a total of 3 years. Fixed it and sold it for a Suzuki 850 - 4. which was the best bike I owned.
Some people seem to have had great experiences with the XS some terrible, real lucky dip of a motorcycle
1982 Yamaha 550 Vision. Had one. Talk about issues !
Oh dear, too clever for its own good?
Surprised the Suzuki TL1000 didn't make the list, with it's ill feted rotary damper on the rear suspension, (space saving due to the big v twin) overheating and locking up, causing fatalities.
It did it’s on another video
I had two of the XS750's both excellent rides reliable and I did a lot of touring with my wife (then my girlfriend). The only problem I had with the first one (a D model was it dropped a valve on me which was replaced under warranty, My second bike was set up with 22 ltr panniers a Rickman top box a Pantera full fairing with a big CIBI headlight built in indicators, and sidelights. A dash with Ammeter, Clock, CB unit with a neck mike, a radio with waterproof speakers and an air temperature gauge from a Wessex helicopter. That fairing was heavy. One thing I found out was the shaft drive unit was a BMW unit reversed to fit on the Yamaha. I guess it was made under licence in Japan for Yamaha. I enjoyed both of them but had to sell the last one to a growing family Happy days
Good to some had long and productive lives
... the XS750 shaft drive unit was from GETRAG. ... A german company. ... 😏
Had 2 xs 750s both having no second gear but I got used to going from 1st to 3rd so much so when I swapped out lump for the 850 which had 2nd gear I had to get out of the old gear chane habit
The 850
Has a much better reputation for sure
I had a '75 XS750's. The big problem was that it was way down on power compared to similar models, although '77 and later models were much improved. The red line went from 7500 to 9500 rpm and the power increased to where it was comparable to other 750s. It was also quite heavy, for a sporty bike, but that was normal for the era. The shaft drive was a huge problem as up or down on the throttle would jack the back end up and down and change your line in a corner. It just didn't handle at all well. I didn't even bother trying. It also had a band of painful vibration that in top gear came in between 50 and 70 mph, which of course was made highway riding unpleasant. Much later I had an '81 XJ650 Seca that was smaller, lighter much faster, had no vibration issue, and handled infinitely better, even though it still had shaft drive. The good point was the styling. Both bikes looked fabulous. At least in North America there was a cruiser model, (back then they called them customs) that sold well, particular with the larger 850cc motor.
I certainly agree with the styling it had lovely clean lines, in Europe they were sold as more sporty models which I don’t think fid them any favours.
My old 78 xs 750 sounded great sounded like you where really moving.
Triples do produce a lovely howl
@@bikerdood1100 they sure do.
Funny how mt09 triples are a popular engine for Yamaha now, yet they had a triple so long ago….Thought the xs750 was a great bike at the time.
Well I think build quality was quite variable from Yamaha back then, it’s much better now it must be said. Shaft drive has always divided people too.
I had a Yamaha DOHC 750 all shaft as we called it then, great power but thirsty on fuel, about half the economy of a Honda CB750 of the same period. Was warned of middle cylinder issues but I never seen that, swinging arm though was an issue with ceased tensioners, needed regular servicing I remember, can do a ton easy.
A lot of triples had middle cylinder troubles of all types, I remember a friends Suzuki ate it’s mid cylinder and then was the Triumph BSAs. Often think it’s linked to the centre carb maybe maintenance maybe som3 left the factory set up poorly who knows but 3 cylinder bikes definitely dropped out of favour for a while
I had one of the very first xs 750 machines which I purchased at a discount dealer in Reading England.I have to say it was one of the best bikes I have owned though it was pretty heavy and had a tendency to squeel the tyres if throttle shutdown was too aggressive.The engine sound remimnded me of the American muscle cars and surely motorcyles are about more, than just mechanical imperfections. Lets face it .shaft drive has never been the popular choice and much decried by those who have never enjoyed the luxury of not messing about with stretched oily chains It's good to see people who have actually owned an xs 750 commenting positively from their experiences because sadly any one can write anything on the internet ! and unfortunately too many do.
Well many motorcycles do use shaft drive and love them, unfortunately the bike had a bad rap in the 70s for poor reliability on some bikes. It seems to me that Yamaha build quality was a rather variable at that time. In the price I’m not quoting from the internet but from contemporary publications. It’s just picked out of the either I’m afraid
@@bikerdood1100 Thank you! A polite measured honest response to which I would say keep up the good work, because without people like you the internet would be a sterile adverts only platform,
@@aleddavies6361 well it’s true I have nothing to sell and my only agenda is a love of motorcycles
"The machine was a three cylinder triple". Glad to hear that; so much better than those two cylinder triples...
🙄
Two years too late their 😂
3 cylinder triple, huh? Whatever blows your hair back, I suppose. Same as saying 3am in the morning.
I did over state, I don’t know one tiny slip up 😂
I hate 3 am 😂
I had a TT600. I think it was 1999 model. Cornered like it was on rails. Brilliant brakes. Not quite as fast as the Japanese 600’s but I could live with that. The fuelling was a nightmare. Docile under 2,500 rpm, bonkers at 2,501 rpm. Had to be careful it didn’t try to take off half way round a round about. It had to go.
My 2002 model was much improved, in terms of fueling
I love the XS 750, I owned one but lack of sales means parts supply would run-out!
Tough to get parts for some older Japanese bikes
after listening to your matter of fact sounding critique i'm curious as to just how much seat time you personally have had on a first gen xs750 because your whole list of claimed negatives were all pretty much bullshit and you didn't mention the one real quirk about the 1st XS shaft bikes and that is under acceleration, especially hard acceleration, the rearend of the bike would lift dramatically which could extremely unnerving when getting on the gas during hard cornering, feeling the back of bike lift when you are leaned over hard in a corner can get scary but the rest of your claims are pretty much crap as i'm sure other old owners of xs's will confirm......
Don’t believe I was commenting on how the bike rides. More about historical issues encountered. Judging by some of the comments I missed a few issues in all honesty. The issues mentioned are well known and documented. It seems to me that Yamaha were a little inconsistent in terms of production quality in the 70s some bikes certainly had no issues but a lot did and I can’t change that even if I did think that it was a very handsome bike. I’ve never ridden an Indian brave 250 but it’s still a turkey
Can't tell what you're saying.
Pardon
It’s called English
I’ll add subtitles next time
Or speak more slowly
Regarding Yamaha and shaft drive, you have omitted the European success story of their BT1100 Bulldog an air cooled Vee twin with shaft drive. This was aimed primarily at the European market, but also had reasonable success here in the UK and still has a faithful following among enthusiasts.
It’s only a short video, not an essay after all. U don’t think the XS failed just because it used shaft drive it must be said
The 600cc sport bike market got started good in the 80's inside the US, with bikes like the Honda Hurricane and the Kawasaki Ninja. They were more affordable in regards to purchase price and insurance, and they gave new riders an avenue into the sport bike persona. But for those of us who learned to ride at an early age on machines like the Honda Z50 and various domestic minibikes, we saw absolutely no point in owning a 600cc motorcycle, 750 was the bare minimum and even those usually got replaced with one of the liter bikes.
It’s a pity that the 600 class went wrong. They had plenty of real world performance. I don’t think anyone really needs lite class performance
@@bikerdood1100 Until you own something like a ZX10R or a GSXR 1000
Try to find a Hurricane 600 now in the US good luck
@@bikerdood1100 ya when the Highway patrol got zx14 concourses you did too they made me beat my R6 to death. The 600s with EFI we're fine against the 1200 BMWs and the Big Twin HDs you could mess with them and let them catch up.
@@stewartmckinley7058 In the 80's the 600 Hurricane was a entry level sport bike, purchased by mostly new riders wanting to be part of the sport bike graze and as such, most were destroyed in accidents, so yeah I'm sure they are hard to find.
One of my friends had a XS850 nice bike.
He did had gearbox problems
Shame nice bikes but the detail work wasn’t right
I had a Sunbeam S7 for several years. It was not a good motorcycle. It was capable of 75+ mph, but it really wasn't happy above 55. At speeds above 35 mph, it would blow oil out the engine breather, which, being located at the front of the rocker cover, meant it oiled almost the entire engine, and everything else aft and below. The front driveshaft coupling was 4 rubber bushings in a tinplate sandwich, and the bushings failed. The rear drive was a worm and crown wheel, (an unsuitable application) and the crown wheel broke. It also oiled the single dry plate clutch, and regularly broke the flexible exhaust coupling.
I also had a chance to ride a Yamaha XS 750. Aside from the shaft effect, there was a slight delay in its response to steering inputs. When you wanted to lean into a curve, it didn't heel over immediately. No other quirks, so I suspect it was not unique to this particular example.
With the Sunbeams the most common complaint seems to have been around that worm drive, not a good design at all.
The XS seems to have been incredibly inconsistent with different machines varying anywhere between great, ok and terrible. Shame because I always thought it looked good
@@bikerdood1100 Many Japanese bikes of that era used plastic (teflon?) swing arm bushings. As they wore, the handling got worse. I rode a Waterbuffalo, and it had the 'hinge in the middle', probably due to shot bushings.
I had a tt 6 , it was a bit snatchy at low revs but once it picked up it was brilliant, plenty of room on it and good for miles , 😀 I'd have another but there are definitely better bikes out there
Think they should have launched the bike with carbs initially until they sorted the fueling
A son & I have Speed Fours and love them, despite a bit of fuelling issues.
Thanks for some interesting assessments. As a callow youth I had fancied the then new XS750 Yamaha but was basically too poor to buy one (so I ended up with an SR500). One night however I dreamt I was riding a beautiful new Silver/Blue XS750 which I proceeded to put down the road in, I think a low side crash. While I still have a soft spot for them, I have steadfastly refused to ever ride one; just in case!
I understand the need to avoid you two wheeled drug of choice
I had an SR that motor won the first Dakar
My Yammie XS750D, I think about '76-'77 model, (same colour scheme as the example in this video), was a great reliable daily rider, though a bit heavy and underpowered, travelling 120klm round trip too and from work each day. Very heavy on fuel, but I rode it hard, eventually retired it, the primary chain had stretched to the point of rattling against the crankcase, (a problem addressed in the E, next, model). Ended up trading it on a Honda 750 four K2 if I can remember back that far, Honda, "bombproof".
Such a mixed bag of comments on the poor old XS. last one was from a mechanic at a dealership. Some horror stories there. The bike really seems to have been inconsistently built if you got a good one it was happy days
@@bikerdood1100 They had a odd setup for XS production that I read somewhere. They decided to train new engine assemblers on certain models at different times through the year early XS was one of those. Maybe they had a tech that wasn't a great teacher for some?
The Sunbeam with the balloon tyres is a fantastic looking bike
A bobber before they were a thing
I had the XS750E it was a grunty higher tuned model but the handling was twangy in an S bend and the breaks useless in the rain - in the end, the chain tensioner silencing rubber came off the ground and blocked the oil screen and the middle pot nipped up and conrod seized
They definitely had some quality issues in the 70s
Crappy breaks was very much a 70s thing
As the former owner of an 80 850 Special I can tell you Yamaha did not fix on elf the cooling issues. And at about 35.000 miles. The center cylinder intake valve went. So I get it fixed. And for someone living paycheck to paycheck. That really hurt but what was worse at 40.000 miles. The timing chain was stretching and needed to be replaced. Talking to the Yamaha mechanic (not the place who did the valve job) was told that you have to split the cases. Way outta my budget. Rode it till it wouldn't run no more and junked it. A friend had a Kawasaki 750 and it had 140.000 +....
Often a theme with the two stroke triples too I remember
They (XS750’s) had a gearbox fault, didn’t they? I recall my mate having the XS850…not sure if it had been tweaked, but in first it would leave rubber on the road.
Just seemed to have been issues in a number of areas on the early bikes in particular. Shame because they looked so good
@@bikerdood1100 - sounded good too with an Alpha or Piper 3 into 1! I have a light sprinkling of Classic Bikes in my garage
Can you do one episode about xs360 please 😊
🤔
When I got my full license the xs750 was the first big bike I rode loved it.
They were pretty bikes, if inconsistent
Yamaha XS 750 chopper style with gloss black / gold speckle tank and side covers - what a magnificent bike - only good memories.
A good one is a mighty good one
How, exactly, do you define disaster? Something really bad, right? Other than the super rare antiques, Sunbeam and MV Agusta 350, I've riden all of these bikes with none of the "disasters" that you described. In particular the Yam Xs750 was a great bike. I just saw a 78 Xs750 at the hardware store a week back. The owner told me his 44 year old "disaster" has been his summer daily driver since forever. Yeah a 44 year old "disaster " still running strong.
The Xs has a long a very well documented history of problems especially early on I can’t change history I’m afraid. The fact that some bikes were great only proves the inconsistency of Yamaha’s production quality at the time, if you got a bad one it was a stinker. There are sound reasons the machine didn’t sell too well and why Yamaha didn’t follow it up with another triple for decades