1974 SFC

The hex bolt fulcrum in the brake M/C is my favourite (banghead).

Dozens can amount to hundreds!  Just a half-arsed effort.

piet
 
Don't know the ins and outs of the sfc but i do know the switches have done a lot more than the mileage stated.
  Regards Andy 😁
 
I agree with Piet. If you are asking that kind of money, anything that is replaced should be correct - and fitted correctly. It even seems to have the replacement mismatched fuel taps with opposite ways for off/reserve (like I have suffered on mine for years). Not having spent much time around SFCs I am far from an expert, and they no doubt rely on that being the fact for their buying public, and the American issue SFCs did differ quite a bit from the rest of the world.
Did all the PHM carbs have the newer type shallow float bowl drain?
 
sfcpiet said:
The hex bolt fulcrum in the brake M/C is my favourite (banghead).

Dozens can amount to hundreds!  Just a half-arsed effort.
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Blimey, you blokes are fussy. It would probably cost all of 10 cents to replace the lever pivot bolt with a socket head. And the handgrips are easily replaced if they bother the next owner.
I'm surprised you're not moaning about the leaf on the ground under the bike.

I think it's a nice tidy bike. If I had a spare $70K lying around I'd be tempted.
 
Dellortoman said:
Blimey, you blokes are fussy. It would probably cost all of 10 cents to replace the lever pivot bolt with a socket head. And the handgrips are easily replaced if they bother the next owner.
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I think the criticisms are more to do with the fiction of the description and the question of whether any internal work has been as sloppily executed as the external details. As you point out, it would have been simple and inexpensive to correct the obvious details.
 
Dellortoman said:
Blimey, you blokes are fussy. It would probably cost all of 10 cents to replace the lever pivot bolt with a socket head. And the handgrips are easily replaced if they bother the next owner.
I'm surprised you're not moaning about the leaf on the ground under the bike.

I think it's a nice tidy bike. If I had a spare $70K lying around I'd be tempted.
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Not being fussy Cam.  I hadn't even looked at the asking price.

It is described as being a "magnificent example", but is actually miles away.  Gonna take more than 10 cents to make it properly presentable.  Imo, it has carelessly been thrown together to make a quick buck, a lot of quick bucks... ::)

I know a bloke that goes out of his way to get things correct on the Laverda twins he re-builds.  They end up as close as factory-new as you could possibly get, and work and ride accordingly.  He asks fair prices for his efforts, but he's only laughed at. 

Then I see this POS.  The magic "SFC" combined with a bit of "history" and sales blurb gets everybody drivelling.  How stupid is the buying public?? :-X

piet
 
replace the lever pivot bolt with a socket head
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..and it'd still be wrong!  This sort of detail is the difference between doing it right and saying it's right.
And I'm sad enough to know some of this stuff  :-\
 
On the later Brembo MC Cam. The early ones, metal cap, have a flat head slotted IIRC. Just looked at my SFC and I have a cap screw, must have replaced the original after it had worn out and the lever was sloppy. Obviously at the time I didn't have the correct part and the cap screw fitted. It feels perfect now but not correct. Alot of criticism for a 45 year old bike. My US spec SFC also has SFC clip ons [I've never like the adjustable bars on the SFC], round tail light, magura twin pull throttle, Koni shocks and worst of all I replaced the hex bolt with cap screws holding the ally engine covers on. It's what we did in the early 80s. I also rode my SFC, it has 29000 miles on the speedo and they're all mine except for the first couple of hundred. Back then it was just another bike and could be brought for not alot of money. If I knew what I know today I'd have sent the SFC back to WA from San Francisco and carried on travelling with my SF2 instead of selling it to continued my world travels on the SFC. If that was the case then I'd have a virtually new SFC with very low miles sitting in the lounge room instead of a bike with lots of patina and no memories of the fun I had hooning around Nth America, Europe, IOM twice and some of the best roads in NSW and a few race tracks to boot.
I'd better send Wolfgang an email to order a replacement brake lever screw and get another set of hex bolts for the engine cover. I still have the adjustable bars and shocks. I butchered the original ND throttle switch by cutting off the throttle bit leaving the starter/kill switch so I'll have to replace that as well. The squ tail light got used on the Motodd when that got broken so I'll have to get another one of those as well then My SFC would be pretty original The rear sprocket is in need of replacement but I'm reluctant to replace it as I don't want to fuck with the tabs that lock the sprocket bolts. After all they're original. There are lots of bolts on the bike that have never been removed ex factory. Still has the original cable ties on the frame.
But I'm sure some will find something wrong with it. The way I see it, it cost me fuck all, owes me nothing, cost me nothing to keep it [while in the lounge room] and a heap of fun to ride.
I'd rather have my SFC with it's patina and non original bits than one that has been restored/repainted that show only a couple of thousand miles on the speedo. It's usually the US spec ones that seem to come up for sale on the auction sites/ebay.
 
Dellortoman said:
Isn't the brake lever pivot a recessed socket head, or am I confusing it with something else?
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Only on the later M/Cs with the plastic reservoir. 

All-metal M/C had a flat slotted screw, rather special dimensions and hard to find these days.  Not to mention the Thackery(?) washer between M/C and lever, these are always missing...

piet
 
And replacement levers have a different internal dimension hard bush for the pivot, so an original pivot screw won't fit. I swapped the bush into my previous lever, but the one now even has a different OD so it has an improvisation. No more just buy and fit for our old bikes.
That's the best excuse ever for not replacing a sprocket, Rob.
 
I guess you'd have to return yours to US original, Rob? The ('74) ones here were different in many ways,, weren't they? Smiths tacho? (no speedo?) Round tail light? Clipons? Little toggle switchgear?
 
I like it the way it is Q. The only difference to Euro spec is the instruments, switches and wiring loom. Never likes the look of the US specs with the squ tail light, indicators and mirror.
Quite like having the instruments and the odometer is handy for keeping records.
 
Also forgot to add the adjustable bars for the US spec models. I have all the bits to put it back to original if I ever need to. Also the US spec models had the earlier instrument mount with ally blocks to clamp the bars and instruments to the top yoke.
That broke in a very short time so replaced with the later type.
 
Tippie said:
That instrument bracket was the first thing that broke on my SF2. It amazes me to see it on bikes today, they have barely been ridden.
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Completely agree!  Although mine had apparently lasted 10,000 miles until I started riding the bike  :D
 
motoddrob said:
Also forgot to add the adjustable bars for the US spec models. I have all the bits to put it back to original if I ever need to. Also the US spec models had the earlier instrument mount with ally blocks to clamp the bars and instruments to the top yoke.
That broke in a very short time so replaced with the later type.
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My US spec bike and every other US spec SFC had the later style instrument mounts. Perhaps yours was one of the first.

Jim
 
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