Yes, I noticed the free socket included with the sale, as well as a small vice grip which was used in place of a petcock

Kawasaki triple isn't surprising, when you look into oil pump issues on the old Suzuki's, you end up reading a lot about the various Kawasaki triple oil pump issues as Kawasaki and Suzuki both used Mikuni oil pumps, and at higher miles the pump crank shaft seal is prone to wearing into the potmetal housing, and the Kawasaki seal which superseded the original is too tight, and doesn't let the lever return via the original spring, causing a real headache be it on a Suzi or Kawa, did my third tear-down of the TS185 oil pump today. Should have just left a drip pan under it from the beginning. Yamaha made the correct choice to make their own oil pump.

Love to see a highest miles thread for the old enduros before anything fancy like cylinder plating. This is the outlier in my garage, CT2 has under 5k on it and TS185 about 1500.

Gr8auntiepat's RD200DX (smaller version of the RD400, but not sold in the US) has just under 29k miles on it.

It was her first bike and she bought it (under my guidance!) in 1981.

It doesn't get taken out very much now, but I start it most days. It's one of those "part of the family" bikes that will never get sold.

I've seen some very high mileages on the Suzuki GT750 Kettle/Water Buffalo.

I’ve wondered the same also. It would be an interesting thread. Some guy on bookface claimed 45,000 on an rt2 if I remember correctly. But hey, it’s bookface, so is it real?

45,000, that would be incredible but I guess it is possible, if one was commuting on it.

In the high mileage thread, Mark asked if it was bored or not. It's July and I had planned to wait and work on the bike in January...but it doesn't take much prompting to start wrenching on an old Yamaha. The socket in one of the earlier photos was a 1/2" so that went straight to the trash. I think the original owner took good care of the bike, but the guy I purchased it from seemed a bit tweekerish, as can be seen by the "air cleaner".


Head off, whew that's a lot of carbon build up.


Same on the head. Something is a little off but I didn't notice it...

In the past I'd cleaned carbon by hand, this time I went with a brass wheel on a dremel tool and some lacquer cleaner, much faster.

First over on the piston.


Cleaning the head and a crack becomes rather obvious. It goes about halfway up the spark plug thread, and stops.


Oil on top of the head makes me think it was getting past the spark plug?


I can't decide if this is a crack, or just a seem in the casting, as it's on both sides of the spark plug hole and leading toward the head bolt holes (no crack in them and part of it is raised slightly as you'd typically see in casting)


That's as far as I got today, it's 100f now and no A/C in the garage.

I'd replace the head . I can't imagine it would be hard to find another .

I don't like unfinished threads and accidentally left this one. Took the head off a spare '74 DT125 engine, borrowed a 12v battery and she started. Realized I would not be home much for the next year, and sold it to a nice family who wanted it for their two boys to learn on, one was already into the old enduros and hopefully really has the bug now.

That’s super cool, especially that young men are interested in these bikes and you helped encourage that enthusiasm. Well done.