Dre-XT-Stück - making her mine (part 2)

Right, so the Summer has come, I have owned the Dre-XT-Stück in my name for more than 2 weeks and still haven't ridden it more than from my dad's place to my workshop and at this point it has mostly been a rather large workshop ornament and agreed it does look somewhat cool, but I don't really have room for more than one two-wheeled conversation piece. (And the Turbo does that job really well. 😹)

One of the first things that needed adressing was to make a choke cable to connect a 43F choke lever with a 2KF (i.e. later model) carb.

 
The next step was to put the forks back to the correct height, as my dad lowered the front by about 30mm and this resulted in the bike weaving and wobbling at high(er) speeds.

(Oh and sorry for the blurry pictures from here onward, seems like my camera has decided that it had enough EMP-exposure...)

That's a whole lot better:

And the last major bit were some decent (as in not bent) ally handlebars. Nothing special, they actually seem to be rather close to stock and won't rust. I didn't swap the handlebar rubbers, even though they have deteriorated rather badly, because they are rusted in solidly and on some second thought a bit of vibration damping might go a long way.

Other stuff that was done was bend the gearshift lever back (the bike probably had been knocked over at some point), clean up some of the wiring, fitted a bash-plate (that's obviously from another model, so I may have to make my own in the long run and make a (hopefully) better fuel tank mount out of two TR1 dampener rubbers.

And some wind-deflectors (genuine 1992-made Acerbis brush guards) added for bad-weather protection.

So what's the verdict: After turning the mix-screw in to one turn, it actually goes pretty well, fuel consumption is at around 5.2 to 5.6 L/100km after the first 300km and she actually manages a top-speed of 130kph, which is quite impressive as this isn't the 600, but only a 500cc version. I will (wholeheartedly) admit, that this is the most sensible motorcycle I have in my stable at the moment, which also is the reason, why it hasn't really "clicked" yet. Don't get me wrong, it's really good at what it does and it will be quite a tad better with some panniers fitted and probably the seat re-padded a bit (it's rather worn in some areas), but truth be told, overtaking a car on a backroad gets a tad exciting and it is in fact a bit buzzy as you have to keep the revs over 4000 rpm to make good progress. Maybe a 600 engine truly is in the cards, as that should in theory give me the highway capabilities I am looking for.