Yamaha Tz750 Remembered
YAMAHA TZ750 REMEMBERED
ILLUSTRATED HISTORY
1977 YAMAHA TZ750D
FROM 1974 TO 1982, TZ750s WON THE Daytona 200, continuing the maintainable simplicity U.S. privateers had come to expect from Yamaha production racers. Every part has a story. These ribbed aluminum brake calipers were introduced in 1980, saving weight over the previous 4½-pound iron RD calipers. But by the second race of the season, every rider had taken them off. Too much flex! If the rider was somebody fast, the front frame downtube would crack just below the upper right radiator mount.
Club-like steel mufflers—a product of the 1976 sound limits—would give way to light aluminum cans and then to black carbon fiber. The big dry clutch was deceptive. Riders liked its progressiveness, but a single hot start could warp its steel plates. Gently!
Wire wheels! Elliot Morris began supplying his pioneering seven-spoke magnesium wheels in late ’73.
On either side of the sparkplug seen here are the heads of aluminum cylinder nuts. The blue-anodized 1974 nuts broke; one relegated Kenny Roberts to second in the Daytona 200 that year. A fragile three-spoked transmission gear in the Boston Cycles TZ750A broke at Loudon, cracking the engine cases. Don Vesco traded us a new set for our broken ones, saying, “I was gonna just saw the gearbox off, anyway; it’s going in my streamliner.” Yamaha updated the gears.
That tiny radiator pushed engine temperature over 90 degrees Celsius on hot days, despite faster water-pump gears. AMA old-timers loved to hold the start until all the big TZs were pushing water out their overflows. It’s all fading lore today. —Kevin Cameron
Mick Ofield s motorcycle illustrations start at $150. A 20 x 16-inch poster from one of his existing drawings will set you back $25, or $15 for a 16 x 10, plus shipping and handling. For a complete list of available art, contact Ofield at 931/224-0477 or OfieldTN@ blomand.net.
U injury that sidelined fellow MotoGP racer Dani Pedrosa to stop him from finishing on the podium in June’s British Grand Prix. Just eight days earlier, the 37-year-old Monster Yamaha Tech 3 rider had 13 screws and a titanium plate surgically inserted to shore up five breaks in his right collarbone, smashed during practice for the Catalunya GP Despite being in obvious pain (“the collarbone is fixed; my ribs are killing me”), Edwards qualified eighth and finished third in the race, run in miserable conditions. Missing the race in Spain ended Edwards’ impressive string of 141 successive MotoGP starts. The two-time World Superbike champion made his GP debut with Aprilia in 2003.
