My Motorcycles: 1983 Yamaha XTZ550 Vision

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Like the '82, this Vision was a great bike. For some reason, the '83 Vision didn't sell at all in CA until 1985. Once they left the showroom floors, you couldn't find one, anywhere. I watched for an '83 right up till I found one in 1988. I bought the bike, rode it for my last three years in CA and took it with me to Colorado.

The '83 was an especially terrific Colorado touring bike, the fairing's heating system added about two months to my riding season in that state. While friends were hiding in their cages, I rode for all but about two months of the first two years I was in Colorado. The fairing provided great coverage, some storage, and the heating vents worked so well that I can't figure out why more bikes don't do it. The Vision was way ahead of its time. Too much vision?

The only downside to the bike was that the added weight of the fairing seemed to overwhelm the brakes, slightly. The '82 Vision had strong, positive feeling front brakes. The '83 brakes were slightly mushy and not nearly as powerful. Plus, the front end tended to sag under rough road riding. Still, it was a decent motorcycle and it served me well for more than 50,000 miles.

The Corbin seat (in the picture) was a custom design that I drew up on CAD and shipped to Corbin, along with the stock seat frame). It worked pretty well, but I got carried away with my attempt to lower the seat height and the Corbin slightly cramped the riding position with no advantage. For whatever that's worth, it was a fairly cool looking seat and really comfortable for a passenger.

The Vision was so versatile that I only took my XT350 out of the Colorado garage one time, and ended up selling that bike a couple of months later. If the TDM hadn't come along, I might still be riding the '83 Vision. I can't say enough about what a great bike this was.

I put about 50,000 miles on the '83 before selling it to a guy who came all the way to Colorado from Southern California (in the winter) to pick it up. It was still in great shape and ran flawlessly. The guy didn't even want to test ride the Vision. I started it for him and we loaded it into his truck and away he went. I took this picture a couple of days before it left my life. I didn't want it to escape my memory the way the CX500 and others had. The new owner seemed more interested in the stock seat I'd kept in like-new condition, so maybe he was more of a collector than a rider or could see that the Corbin had some design problems.

My Motorcycles: 1982 Yamaha XTZ550 Vision

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The Yamaha Vision was a great bike, for me. The picture above isn't really of the bike I owned. I snagged this picture from the Yamaha Vision Users webpage, because I never, ever, took a picture of my own '82 Vision. I can't explain why. (There's no accounting for when and why I might use a camera, because I really disliked taking pictures at almost any time. In the digital world, that's changed, but the hassle of carefully handling film and delivering it to a store for developing just didn't interest me.) My own '82 Vision had a Rifle fairing, which made the bike extremely comfortable and provided decent protection from rain and weather. Otherwise, it looked exactly like this bike. Bone stock. The only other modification I made to my '82 was a tapered headstock bearing to calm the bike's tendency to shake at higher speeds.

I owned this bike in Southern California, where it was an excellent compromise between road-worthiness and maneuverability. The Vision is reasonably light, moderately quick, powerful enough to carry two comfortably, a fuel miser (>55mpg for an easy 200 mile range), and has a narrow engine and transmission that is ideal for California's lane-splitting tactic. The motor was exceptional smooth and reliable and the riding position is a slightly aggressive mostly-upright neutral standard posture. The Vision was a terrific commuter bike.

A lot of the bad rap on the Vision was unearned. Some folks complained that the stator was under-designed and burned up easily. I put a lot of miles on two of these bikes and never had that problem. However, I am a believer in engineering specs and the standard text on lead-acid batteries gives them a two-year expected lifetime (regardless of warranty BS). I was religious about abandoning batteries on my Visions, as regularly as possible, every two years.

Another "flaw" was the starter O-ring. When you overfill the oil (even microscopically), this O-ring wouldn't stand up to the minor change in pressure and oil would flow into the starter motor. This happened on both of my Visions and I had the starter rebuilt each time.  After rebuilding the starter, I replaced the Yamaha O-ring with a comparable, but slightly heavier/thicker, part found at a local auto parts store and never had the problem again on either bike.

The final glitch in my Vision ownership was head-shake at medium speeds. It took a while to get decent advice on this, for the '82. A great mechanic, who was the head guy for Beach Yamaha in Huntington Beach, CA, recommended changing out the head bearings with tapered bearings. He did the work, on both bikes, and that permanently solved the problem.

I put about 60,000 miles on the '82 before selling it to a friend of a friend. It was still in great shape and ran flawlessly. The new owner promptly smashed the Rifle fairing with his garage door. He, mostly owned motorcycles for the pleasure of having possessions, so, for him, the bike was ruined. I doubt that it ever left his garage until he sold it. Weird.