Thanks guys.

SingleMinded - your Tenere sounds exactly like ours !!

RickM - I've toyed with the idea of just a main bearing - but once everything has been split and a full gasket set ordered (Prob �100?), it'll still be an expensive rebuild, and as mentioned I don't think the bike will be fetch more than �2k in full running order - hence my theory about trying to get �1k by breaking it.

I'm pretty sure there's no browning - certainly not to the extent of you photos.

I'll drop yamaha an email and see what they say.