new member, but not new to Fazer

[marsman]

I joined the group at the end of December, but I've had my Fazer since 1994.


I have a 1986 Fazer that came pre-crashed with only 1800 miles on it. The guy I got it from had 2 Fazers that had been crashed and the one I got had the better parts of both and was actually in pretty decent shape, mostly just scrapes on the pipes and missing the fake air scoop on the right. I rode the Fazer for years, mostly as a commute bike, and put over a hundred thousand miles on it. Great engine, but spooky handling because of the little 16 inch front wheel and 15 inch rear wheel with fat tire, and long chassis. Nevertheless, a great commuter because of its smooth, linear power delivery, decent gas mileage, great tire life, and reasonably upright riding position.


It had about 103,000 mile on it when the bearing on the transmission output shaft went out. I found out the only way to fix it was to completely tear down the engine and split the cases, so I just parked it in the back of the garage. After I retired, I finally got sick of seeing it sitting in the garage taking up space, so I decided it was time to either fix it or get rid of it. For some reason, I chose the former. Fixing it turned into a year long project removing the engine, tearing it apart, chasing parts (some are very hard to find, all are expensive), and finally getting it back together. I can now say, I have seen virtually every part in that engine.


It now has about 1,000 miles on it since the overhaul and has held together for a season of drag racing at the Wednesday night bracket races at Sonoma raceway, so I guess I can call the overhaul successful.


Here's a picture of the Fazer the day I rolled the odometer over, near the Golden Gate bridge.

[BBROWN1664]

Welcome to the group. I am sure you will have gathered by now, this is mainly a UK based group with the bikes Yamaha called the Fazer in the UK. These are the FZS600, FZS100 and the later models the FZ6 and FZ1000 known as the FZ1 in the USA.

[marsman]

Thanks for your comment, and yes, I'm aware that this is a UK site. Fazer being a very rare model in the U.S. ('86 and '87 model years only), there seem to be no Fazer groups over here. There are a couple that are sub-groups of other Yamaha models, but the sites don't seem to be maintained as I tried to join and never got a response. I know that there were later models in Europe that were called Fazers, but I actually don't know if what we call the Fazer in the U.S. were ever sold in the UK. Maybe you know. In the model Fazer (FZX700) that I have, the engine and portions of the chassis are very closely related to the FZ750 sportbike. The 700cc displacement came about because of the tariff imposed by the US on bikes over 700cc.

[BBROWN1664]

Hi Marsman - The fzx was never officially sold in the UK so, whilst there are a few here, there are not many at all.

[mtread]

Fazer, Shmazer. It's a Yamaha, so welcome