The 1983 Yamaha TT-600K.
Big single-cylindered 4-stroke dirt bike made for general off-road use, like trail riding, popping big wheelies, and fooling around on a makeshift motocross track.
I bought one of these somewhere around 1990.
It was sitting in a shed, neglected and looking beat-up, and making a bad-sounding "thunk" noise from the engine when you moved the kick starter lever.
Still, I bought it and brought it home.
Turns out that the noise from the engine was simply the big nut on the end of the crankshaft that fastens the gear which drives the clutch.
Somebody was in there and didn't properly tighten it, so the gear was wobbling back and forth, making the noise.
Once I took care of that, and of course went through the entire bike to bring it up to snuff, I had myself a fun, heavy, extremely torquey dirt bike.
By motocross bike standards, it was very heavy, weighing about 275 pounds, dry.
However, once you become used to the weight from that massive engine, it is a fun bike to ride, throwing clumps of dirt off the rear tire with ease and doing wheelies like it's nobody's business.
I rode the bike for at least a year, never having any trouble with it, but certainly having a lot of fun on it.
The bike felt solid with good stability over rough ground, a good suspension, very good brakes, and was very easy to start, something that other big, kick start 4-strokes have a reputation of not having.
In fact, if I were to run across another one for a fair price, I'd be tempted to buy it.
It left a good impression in my head.
Off to jerk for another freebee 1/2 day Saturday,
-John
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