Another 172 miles today

One step at a time, yes?
Making progress on the 79 A1.

No longer afraid to ride outside of cell phone range and 'AAA' (US tow truck company, basically)... as in 'come fetch me, my POS motobike left me stranded, I'm old and and can't walk far...LOL

Off the cuff -

When ambient temps are low, say 60F, she runs at 7/8th of normal operating temp zone (NOTZ). When it got warmer, say high 60's, the indicated temp actually dropped.. Perhaps the T-Stat is slightly bypassing at lower temps then fully opening for lower readings?

As more miles are run, she seems to run better.
Never went over NOTZ on temp gauge.

Manually turning fans on when in slow mph is a good thing.
Forgetting to turn turn manual fan switch off when stopped is a bad thing
Delay relay needed.

Not 'Caining' the bike and mpg increased.

No signs of blue oil smoke from exhaust when the few times went to red line.. thinking oil consumption rates and the last 'thrash' ride.

Fuel delivery.. Next issue. After 4 gallons of 5 gallon tank... no more fuel. And so it goes..
A little video from today's ride..

I think that if the outdoor temperature was above 100F, I would believe that a reading on the engine temp gauge near the upper end and back off on power since the coolant system is being strained to maintain the engine temperature. High engine temps when running at 60F outdoor temperature in my mind is an indicatoin that something is not quite right. If you believe the engine temp gauge to be correct, I would be changing out the thermostat. These 2 stage thermostats operate between partial bypass and full bypass. Under normal operating conditions, they are partially open and blend engine coolant with cooled rad coolant thereby modulating the engine coolant rather than exchanging the coolant to keep the temperature at operating temp. It's possible that a weak thermostat maybe regulating the bypass at one of the extreme ends of that operating window.
Your IR checks on the rad indicate a reasonably acceptable rad and you've burped the system enough that you are now able to ride so I have no doubt that if there was minor burping still required, the bike would have done this itself by now. The only thing that could be holding the operating temp at the upper end of the operating range provided the indicator is correct, is the thermostat. I would be changing it out.

This is the thermostat offered by Zed-parts thermostat at 38£ and a pic of that replacement part.

If your t-stat doesn't look like this one, I might suspect a previous owner may have swapped out the t-stat with an incorrect one.

My 2 cents (for what that's worth)
KB

Looks like you had a great ride. Beautiful photos.

KB, I made that mistake earlier.. Incorrect T-Stat installed. Advertised as KZ1300 but didn't have the bypass portion. The one installed is OEM, and I have another NOS at the ready. Planning to pull the thermostat when doing a complete flush prior to adding Evans Cooling Fluid. THANK YOU for your help!

dcarver220b wrote: KB, I made that mistake earlier.. Incorrect T-Stat installed. Advertised as KZ1300 but didn't have the bypass portion. The one installed is OEM, and I have another NOS at the ready. Planning to pull the thermostat when doing a complete flush prior to adding Evans Cooling Fluid. THANK YOU for your help!

Thanks for link, ordered one from Zed-Parts just now.