b717doc,
I owned a brand new 71 750 Tiger, 5 speed. Owned it for 30 years and never had a problem with it, some Lucus electrical problems over the year's, but always able to get her home.
One thing that is critical. Oil in frame was always clean and easy to maintain the welds on the frame were top notch and you will never have to worry about the welds cracking.
Just make sure you throughly clean the inside of the frame when you get it back from the strippers, the oil filter is a screen located at the bottom of the main down tube. If there is one thing that will kill your project quicker than anything is the motor freezing up. The screen works great in keeping junk out of the enigne and tranny, but can clog up very quickly. I changed my oil and cleaned the screen every 500 to 1,000 miles.
As for the five speed tranny, when I sold it I had 92,000 miles on it and changed the clutch once at 70,000 miles. The trick is not to beat on it, hole shots, 7,000 rpms speed shifts will destory the gears quickly.
You can tune these bikes easily your self you just need a timing wheel, these were cutouts from the manuals, they have two sets of points which are easy to set, put the bike up on the center stand and put it in gear and up can spin the rear wheel until the cam opens the points easy to set the set screw at this point.
The other thing I remember is the nuts, bolts and screws were neither american standard, nor metic but a British standard I believe called "wentworth", my bike came with a pretty good tool kit that made working on all the frame, wheels and tuning pretty easy. major engin or traay work really involves alot of speciaility tools, very few gaskets everything was a precision machine fit.
You are going to love the feeling in your butt and every girl who every rides on the bike is going to be your best friend. I will not tell you how, but you will soon discover it once you get her togther and out on the open road, only bike you will want to ride on the slab. Just and incentive to finish the job.
Good luck.
