Bandit 400 opinions?

[Teflon]

Have fun with your new bike mate.

i could see you on one of these..
http://www.trademe.co.nz/Trade-Me-Mo...n-47623729.htm

i'm so tempted to buy that..

[SPman]

Good one Eric - the bandit will give you a bit more room, tall streak of w p that you are..

[Bonez]

Nice score Erik. May you have many 1000kms of trouble free riding on her.

[ducatilover]

hey nice score mate looks quite nice

[erik]

Cheers guys.

[slob]

Nice one Erik, I guess you can fix the bits as you go. You might want to give the wheels, swingarm and steering head a bit of a jiggle to check for bearing freeplay too. So what are the riding impressions like?

[Jackrat]

Yes as Jantar says,do both chain an sprockets at the same time.
The chain doesn't have a tight spot,it's the sprockets being worn that makes it seem that way.
Other than that,good on ya' and hope you get a good run from it.

[erik]

Nice one Erik, I guess you can fix the bits as you go. You might want to give the wheels, swingarm and steering head a bit of a jiggle to check for bearing freeplay too. So what are the riding impressions like?

Already did that when I went to check the bike out; they all seemed ok, just the steering head bearings had a slight click when you hold the brake on and push the bike forwards. But there didn't seem to be any notchiness or play in them when the forks were pulled with the front wheel off the ground.

Compared to the Zeal, it's a lot less twitchy at low speed. It feels more like it's on rails.
The front brakes look promising, twin front discs with 4 pot Tokico calipers. But the lever is pretty mushy and was mounted too close to the twist grip on the handlebars so that when you grab the brake, your index finger is too close to the lever adjustment bit. Hopefully I'll have some good brakes after cleaning them, repositioning the lever and changing the fluid.
The rear suspension felt a bit hard, not sure if it's the damping or the spring. I think I read somewhere that bandits are like that. The front suspension is possibly too soft, I noticed it diving quite a bit under braking. It's going to take a fair bit more riding and I think I'd better read up more about suspension before I decide whether to change things.
The engine redlines at only 13,000rpm which is noticably lower than the Zeal's 15,000rpm redline. It's nowhere near as smooth and revvy as the Zeal and it felt like there was a fair bit of vibration at higher revs (hopefully it's normal).
It was hard to tell if the acceleration was better than the Zeal's. However the top speed definately is.

I really didn't push the bike much and there weren't many twisties so I'll have to report back later after I've checked it over and done some more riding.
I'm looking forward to getting to know it, but I'll be taking it easy. Particularly with the Shinko Sport Master rear tyre... (front is a Dunlop ArrowMax GT501).

Now I have to go clean the garage so I've got some room to work on it.

[erik]

Yes as Jantar says,do both chain an sprockets at the same time.
The chain doesn't have a tight spot,it's the sprockets being worn that makes it seem that way.
Other than that,good on ya' and hope you get a good run from it.

I think I'll try just a heavy duty (non o-ring) chain. I'm pretty sure it's the chain that is causing the tight spot as it occurs when the chain is in a particular position rather than when the sprockets are in a certain position. But I'll keep an eye on it.
The seller gave me a can of chain lube that he was using, it's Shell Advance stuff with PTFE polymers in it. It looks white on the chain. He got it because it's not supposed to make such a mess of the back wheel. I think I'll stick to the stuff I usually use though, in case the white stuff was the cause of the chain stretching.