Let There Be Light!!

Well, as soon as I can hook up the harness and the battery, there will be light...

In one of my earlier entries, I noted that my headlight rim was severely scratched. I just picked it up today from High Lustre Chrome Plating in Hayward this morning.Rich did a phenomenal job on the rim. It actually does look better than brand new. He charged me $125 for the job (although he quoted me $90 over the phone), but his turn around was like 3 business days!

Over the past few days, I bought a few LED lighting pieces for the bike- 2 turn signal sets and a brake lamp. All the items arrived already, so I got to work on mounting up the headlamp assembly. Some of my headlamp parts were missing or too damaged to use. Good thing I had a second headlamp bucket and parts! I bought a new reproduction mount kit from EconomyCycle to help with the mounting. The holes in the aluminum ears that I bought were a little too small, so I had to file on them for a bit with a rat-tail file. I also upgraded the headlight to a Hella H4 headlight and replaced the supplied H4 bulb with a PIAA Night-Tech 60/55W bulb- that should make huge difference in seeing at night! Everything went together beautifully! So now the front end is pretty much finished with the exception of reshaping and painting the front fender. Oh, and I still need to get those wheels finished!

Paul asked me to get a few missing and worn parts. I ordered them from Partzilla, since they seem to have the best OEM prices around. Unfortunately, they're waiting on one part to arrive before shipping them out to me, so this order will take about 2 weeks to process :(

In the meanwhile, I picked up my freshly honed cylinders last Sunday. After all the honing oil and Simple Green, the paint job I had done was fairly ruined. (He did warn me about that, but I just wanted to get them painted, while they were not assembled yet.) I just repainted them again. It didn't take long since I had done them once before. I'll return them this Sunday, so Paul can resume work on the motor.

I'm still awaiting my replacement seat pan from the UK. It should be here on Saturday. When that arrives, I can pull out the other frame and start fitting the seat to it. I will probably have to grind off the hinges and the seat lock, possibly even cut off the end of the frame. After I weld a chunk of metal to the front of the headstock (the steering turn-to-turn lock), I can take the frame down to the powdercoater to shoot the paint.

If I can get the front fender shaped, I can drop off all the parts to Ryan, my painter. So if I'm lucky, the motor, the frame and the painted parts will be ready all at the same time! Now this has become an exercise in project management! We're really starting to come to a close fast!

The Next Steps

So I had to order all new wheel bearings, since I changed design plans away from the RD350 wire wheels. Now I have TWO sets of All Balls wheel bearings! I disassembled the rear sprocket and gave that wheel a good decent scrubbing. I did attempt to remove the old rear tire, but it was a no-go. After finding some help in the internet, I bought a good utility knife and I'll swap out the straight blades for hook blades. Those beads are not going to play nice, so I'm just going to cut the old rubber off of the wheels. I'm sure they won't be a problem, when mounting the new tires on them. After that, I can repaint them, polish the rims and get some fresh bearings in there. Once the tires and wheels are on the bike, I can verifiable claim that I have a "roller"!!

When the seat comes in, I'll have to figure out how to mount that sucker and what might need to get cut off the frame (the other frame). When that is sorted out, I can send the parts off to paint. There still is that issue about the front fender. I do believe that I will cut it down, but I'm thinking that I may just leave it chrome. Maybe not. I still haven't figured it out yet.

I need a brake light system and turn signals for front and back. I am not a big fan of the rear "integrated" turn signals. A new battery is on the way, so I need to refurbish the old battery box. At that point, I may as well try and string in the entire electrical.

Once the engine and the painted pieces come back, I'm just about ready to complete the bike! For the first reincarnation, but bike will have the old ugly seat, just so I can get it to the the DMV for inspection as a "whole" bike. Afterwards, the parts will get transferred to a cut and powder-coated frame for final assembly!

Latest Updates

Last Sunday, I dropped off all the motor parts with Paul. I think he was surprised at how nice all the parts were looking. He was definitely a little amazed at how I was able to find some of the NOS parts out there, especially at such reasonable prices. But then again, I had forever to collect all of these things- when time is on your side, anything is possible! It's going to take 3-4 weeks before I get the motor back, depending how busy he is in his life and if any parts are missing and still need ordering.

So now I can focus on some of the other smaller matters. I swapped out the Woodcraft clip-on bars. They are a little longer and they are black as opposed to the chrome bars that came with the sale. Even though they have a little more length, the mounting assembly still gets in the way of the master cylinder- I think that I'll just need to shim it with a thin slab of aluminum- that should fix and secure it good.

I did receive another used meter bracket off of eBay. It was claimed to be straight and unbent. I also came with the four black chrome screws to hold down the turn signal cover. When it arrived, it was 95% straight with one of the meter tabs slightly bent up. I messaged the seller and he gave me $15 to keep it. I was successfully able to pound it back to a workable angle. Then I painted the bracket and meter covers. Everything mounted up beautifully. I attached the speedo, tach, clutch and throttle cables and called it a day.

I tried to polish out all the scratches on the headlight rim, but it ain't looking too good. After searching for a new or even good conditioned old one on the inter-web, I called up a few local plating shops. This one shop in Hayward quoted me an estimate of $90 to do the job. Not bad. I think I'll take it! So the front end assembly will have to wait until I get the rim back.

I have been searching for the proper seat for months now! I knew for sure that I didn't want a big OEM saddle, one that uses that gigantic seat pan. I really wanted a cafe-style seat with a hump. I had to come up with a solution for filling the 2-stroke oil though. I think I'm just going to keep the filler in the same position, but I may have to cut down the length of the dip stick. I'll mount the seat on a mounting board to give it some height and flexibility on how to mount it, and I'll put it on a hinge attached to the rear of the seat- that way I can [somehow] unlatch the front, tilt the seat back and fill the oil. I carefully did some measurements to figure out what would be my ideal length and I ultimately decided on this seat. With VAT and shipping, it came to just under $210, complete with upholstery. I'm still working on a solution for the gaping hole it's going to leave at the gas tank, but I'm getting closer to a final solution. This seat is actually so long that I don't think I'll even need to cut off the end of the frame. But I will probably have to grind off the hinges and the lock mount.

I'm looking for turn signals now, front and rear. I think I'll get an LED brake light/license plate mount combo thingy. That should work out fine.

More to come.....

Engine Cosmetics Just About Done!

I'm meeting up with my engine builder on Sunday to drop off all the parts. It's my last push to paint, polish and shine all the exterior engine parts, before handing everything over.

For the past 3 months, I've been trying to buy everything needed to get this motor done right. I've bought almost all Yamaha OEM engine parts, with the exception of the connecting rods, some gaskets and miscellaneous parts that were sourced by Yamaha at the time i.e. Sudco seals, etc.

Here's some before and after pictures of the head.

The first thing I did was strip down and polish the Daytona head. I actually started the stripping process 10 years ago, but then just stopped. I've had to buy a used right side engine cover, since one of the allen bolt tabs was broken off. I probably bought the bike like that. All the covers were cleaned, degreased, paint stripped, then painted with PJ1 satin black. I media blasted both cylinders and the inside fins of the head with walnut shell, then painted those with PJ1 high temp flat black paint. Afterwards I took a Dremel flap wheel to the edges. Everything came out fantastic!

Originally I thought I was going to media blast the engine case too, but in the end, I just took some aluminum polish to it and polished it up by hand. I bought some stainless steel allen bolts for the covers on eBay. The finished product should look fabulous!

The build process should take about 3-4 weeks, depending on what Paul has got going on in his private life and how many parts might need to be ordered. I'm pretty confident that he will have all he needs to get complete the job. After the initial build, I'll install the motor, finish the build, and hopefully the bike will start up. I may just bring the bike back to Paul on a trailer, before the inaugural start up, just in case I missed something critical in the build process.

Here's a quick mock-up of the motor- just a glimpse of the what the motor might look like when it's done.

It's Like Christmas!

I started with the task of finishing up the front end of the bike. I had already sanded and painted the headlight bucket, but the chrome ring still needs to get the scratches buffed out of it. I thought it would be nice to tidy up the headlamp area with some new "ears", going with a more modern look. I found some nice billet aluminum brackets on eBay, but I'm sure they're made by the same factory that cuts for Speed Moto Co. If I had really spent time thinking about it, I would have preferred to get the brackets with the turn signal holes, but it's not a deal-breaker.

I finally had a chance to check out the speedometer and the tachometer. On my original set, the tach stopped working. I probably broke something loose when the bike went down before. So I had purchased another set of speedo/tach off of eBay 10+ years ago, complete with a meter bracket. I hooked both items up to my cordless drill via appropriate cable and indeed they did work. It's nice to know after all this time that I didn't purchase duds. But as it turns out, the meter bracket was one belonging to a different RD model. I tried to reuse my old bracket, but it was way too bent to salvage. So I purchased another used one off of eBay, one that claimed it was "not broken or bent". When the part arrived, it was definitely bent. I just dropped in the mail today to do the refund/return process. The seller was very good about taking the item back. Over this past weekend, I was able to find another used one on eBay, complete with lights, covers (albeit chipped), and with screws! I really just need the bracket and the screws. A fresh coat of paint for the bracket and the speedo and tach covers and I should be good to go!

I have been looking high and low for plugs to go into the center side of the clip-on bars. I took a chance on some cheap ones on eBay coming from China. They arrived and were way too ugly- they fit the inner diameter of the bars, but the outside plug area was too huge. I finally broke down and called Woodcraft. They were able to send me a set for $8, which included shipping. When they arrived, they fit way too loosely! so I emailed Jan from Woodcraft about the issue. Tim took over thinking there might be a production problem. I took a bunch of pictures and emailed them to him. Then we found the problem- the used Woodcraft clip-ons I bought did not have Woodcraft bars!! The wall thicknesses were too thin, so the inner diameter was bigger! Tim was good about offering me new bars at a discount, plus free shipping. The bars just arrived today.

My front Galfer brake line showed up yesterday. Last night I had a chance to mess with them and get them on the bike. As it turns out, the caliper side of the brake line didn't come with a banjo fitting- it came with a 10x1.0 thread fitting meant to thread directly into the caliper! Sweet!!! (Actually, if I had just looked at the picture, that should've clued me in.) Now, I don't have to order another banjo bolt! A pleasant unexpected surprise. I'll take it!

Yesterday, my Tarozzi rearsets arrived. I purchased them directly from Fast From the Past. They really are a work of art! When I opened the box, I was stunned. Most all of the parts were vacuum wrapped against a cardboard card- a nice way to ensure they won't get banged around in travel- very clever! This morning, I broke them out and got them onto the bike. Installation was pretty straight forward. I did have to fight with the brake side fitting on the spline, but after a really good cleaning and a little help from a C-clamp, it got on there with little damage. The workmanship is remarkable. I did not Loc-tite the bolts yet, as I will be tearing this build down after it gets registered, so I can swap it to another frame that I plan to cut. I plan to keep the original matching numbers frame whole and unmolested.