Because neither the factory's brown or green paint offered for the '74TX650A appealed to me, mine now wears '77XS650D livery. TPO had painted the tank and side covers, and the legend on the tank had been professionally painted (see first pic.) The '77 decals worked well, with a bit of filling-in with model paint and a fine paintbrush in the gap between the decals on the tank. Mods were mild, but included Mikuni carbs installed by probably Australia's XS leading authority. The rest include bronze swinging arm bushes, progressive fork springs, fork gaiters, a thinly-disguised 230mm Grimeca 4LS front brake(in a Morad rim that matches the original rear wheel beautifully) Girling look-alike shock absorbers, and Dunstall Decibel type megaphones. I'd prefer flatter bars, but routing the front brake cables from the Suzuki GT750J handlebar lever posed big problems, so the semi-flats I used are a compromise. It rides on Metzeler tyres. Mike's XS and Disco Volante, in the UK, provided most of the bits needed (including the beaut natural-gel handlebar grips.) It's not as high-tech or as quick as the current crotch rockets, but I defy those riders to grin any wider than I do when I'm on the Yam. It shares the garage with a '71 R60/5 BMW, which has now has accumulated 6,600 genuine miles since new. The airhead and the TX share attributes of reliability, easy maintenance and robust engines, and I ride my older bikes instead of my daily-ride BMWR1200RT when I want to remember why I started riding bikes in the late sixties.
