DAYTONA TWO
| Folowing on from my 1970s Daytona, l like many others moved on to Japanese two strokes, and then a varity of Japanese four strokes, ending up with a Yamaha FZR1000 Exup, an amazing machine, l have owned it since 1992, and its been faultless, and as daft as this sounds, l think that is the reason why people say they have no ‘soul’, because l had to fix/repair, and alter my Daytona, it turned into a sort of love/hate relationship, and out of all the faultless Jap bikes l have owned, l always had a yearning for another Daytona. lt made sense if l was going down the nostalgia road, to try and buy one the same year and colour, but finding a Jacaranda Purple one proved harder than l expected, and one in the condition l wanted, and l soon realised my idea of imacculate and other peoples were worlds apart!!! Having wasted a lot of time traveling to look at some pretty dreadfull examples, l was at the point of packing it in as a bad idea, and one the right colour, year, and condition apeared on e-bay , the guy lived in Bristol, a phone call later, a van hired, and down to Bristol, it was parked in the drive, and l knew l was buying it before l even got out of the van!! Having got it home, and used it for a couple of weeks, l was browsing the internet looking at Daytona info, and amazingly dropped on an article written by the original guy who had brought the bike back into the UK from Boston in the USA, where it had been exported to from new, the article gave a full breakdown of its restoration and upgrades, some of which we would never have known about without stripping the engine, thank god for the internet.. l had major fueling issues with the bike after owning it for around 6 months, the carbs where cleaned, then sonicaly cleaned, then it would play up again, it was a nightmare, and then l had a phone-call from Alex Graham who was over in the Isle of Man for the Manx, he said ‘l know whats up with your bike, there’s loads of people suffering the same problems’ yes, the begining of the dreaded ethanol problem, my tank had been lined with sealer as a belt and braces thing, didn’t even need it!! Anyway, Alex came up with a ‘cunning plan’ and the problem was sorted out. l have taken the bike to the Manx, yea, a lap of the TT circuit on that was quite a contrast to doing it on the Exup, it did sound good going through Glen Helen though!! Took it to two of the 1000 bikes events at Mallory, and did the track session on my second visit, what a hoot!! Owning one is as l remembered it, you do have to keep fixing, and fiddling, l have recently had the oiltank and tool box repainted, and we fitted a one tooth bigger gearbox sprocket, just gave it a less revvy cruising speed, new fork oil seals and fork gaiters, but thats what the ‘soul’ thing is about, you put a lot of you into the bike, and that doesn’t happen with the modern/jap bikes. l have included the pics and info l was lucky enough to find on the internet, the detailed work that was done on the bike is all there, and worth a read, a pic of the bike on the prom at the Manx, and a couple at one of the shows..plus a few more, including the repainted panels, hope it been of interest, looking forward to reading other peoples tales, think there’s going to be plenty of time for reading and writing this winter!! Take care everyone.. Charlie Broom |
New Daytona 675 next to old 500 Daytona and they both look fantastic as I’m sure you’ll agree.
The Daytona Dyno results after a carb/ignition set up by P3 Tuning in Speke, who are ironically based on Triumph Way, in Speke, the bike nows starts, runs ticks over like a different machine, and l would highly recommend them to anyone , regardless of what machine, they set up trackday bikes and proffesional race bikes up, do servicing/fault finding and tuning, and as has been proved with mine, classics as well.
