Like 95% There....

As for the electrical, I kind of knew that I would be handing that over to someone else, as my electrical skills are quite limited. It's actually somewhat of a small miracle that I got the bike to start and even run in the first place. I had a basic understanding about how schematics work, but had to do a fair bit of guessing in some areas. Additionally, the old Yamaha schematics are not 100% accurate anyway!

No matter what I tried, I could not get the turn signals to work properly. And I couldn't even get the brake light to light up at all! Lots of different factors going on here. I'm changing out the incandescent turn signals for LED's as well as the brake light, so I wasn't even sure if they needed to have inline resistors. The brake light claims that no resistor is needed, but I wasn't confident with that. I know that the rear brake switch was brand spankin' new, as I literally pulled it out of an OEM bag to build the brake system. (I bought it 30 years ago and never used it- don't ask me why I even bought it.) Also could it be my bad wiring? So many questions! I just want the stuff to work!

I took the bike back to Alan & Sons. I had talked with Alan at the end of last season and he said that this kind of electrical is something that he can do. I dropped off the bike and gave him the scoop. I even supplied him with another LED brake light, in case the mounted one was actually dead.

About a few days later, he called me and said the bike should be ready for pickup in the next day or two. I drove by at the end of the week to retrieve the bike. The invoice was $409!!! Yikes! No one really likes to do electrical, so if he's going to have to do it, I guess he's going to make it worth his while. He showed me that the rear LED was working- brake light and running light, but only for the rear brake. He believed that the front brake switch was bad, something that was totally possible, since it was the original. The LED signals worked, but didn't blink. He demonstrated that when activating the switch for the left side, it is about 50/50 and suggested that I just give it a good cleaning and that should take care of it. He did have to do a bunch of electrical troubleshooting. He found that some wires were hooked up wrong and that one of the wires going to the rear was broken (no continuity) and needed to be replaced. He also had to solder resistors for the signals. He also connected my little LED's for the license plate, something I didn't even ask him to do.

I found a cheap front brake switch off of eBay- cost me $8. (An NOS one would've cost about $50. I don't think that anyone buying this bike later will even care. I sure don't care.) I finally had some time off from work today to actually test it out and get it mounted. Alan was right about that dead switch! I works now! Now I have front and rear working brake light circuits! That's a really big deal! Now, I can actually ride the bike at night and not worry about someone whacking me!

The next step is to try and get the LED signals to actually blink. I just cleaned out the turn signal switch, as Alan had suggested that I do, since when signaling left, it's kind of iffy. That didn't seem to help. I threw the original flash relay back on, but the left still didn't want to cooperate. The flash relay was crackling and making all sorts of sounds, when I activated the turns. I don't think the switch itself is the problem- it sounds like it's all about the flasher unit. I bought a bunch of flash relays from O'Reilly, mostly electronic ones. I think I just need maybe a 2-prong mechanical one. I'll check that out on Thursday.

Other successes I've had lately with the bike are getting the chamber silencers removed. I had to take them to my favorite local machinist, where he was able to throw some serious heat at them and coerce them to come off. I cleaned up the baffles and got them packed with new fiberglass stuffing. I mounted them back on the bike and did a little alignment on the left pipe. Ready to rumble!

Making Progress!

Well, today felt a bit better. I was still suspicious that the pilot, needle and main jets were all related, so I did some fishing around in the ol' interweb. I bumped into a web page published by Factory Pro, a very reputable shop in San Raphael. They are one of (I believe) two motorcycle tuning shops in the entire Bay Area that tunes by Dyno! I am familiar with them, because I have bought parts from them before for my SV650S. Excellent quality and well thought out and tested stuff.

All the tuning tips pages I have read so far start with tuning from the bottom up- get your idle going, then mid-range and lastly WOT. Their method has you start with the main jets and then you work your way down, since the main jet has an affect on the way all the other ranges operate. This made total sense to me and it is what I had suspected. With their methodology, you do not go to the next step until you complete the current step, since the fatter jets play major parts on tuning the smaller jets. Also this tutorial had a blurb in there about adjusting the float heights, where no one else even breathed a word about that. I changed my floats from 23mm to 24mm, effectively lowering the fuel in the bowls by a smidge.

By the end of the day, I had my bike running well into the red line and pulling pretty substantially! Best of all, not a single plug fouled all day!!

The last range I worked on today was the idle range. I had been running the 30 pilot jets all day, so just for yucks, I swapped out and put in 27.5 pilots. Amazingly, the low range suddenly had a crisp snap and got off the line without dogging! How could this be?? I fiddled with the A/F screw and took my final test ride at 0.75 turns out, basically trying to richen the pilot close to as much as possible. The bike ran well with no real flat spots, and the rpm's would climb steadily. I took her on the freeway for a couple of miles. The bike ran easily at 65-70 mph @5500 rpm. But the engine just wasn't as powerful as I thought it should be. I'll have to work on that- maybe raising the needle one more position or going back to the 30 pilots- we'll have to see.

Anyway, it was a very encouraging day indeed. Tomorrow, I'll be taking Angie into Alan & Sons to have them take a look at my electrical, signals and brake light specifically. Once those are sorted out, I'll feel okay about taking the bike out at night. 

Trying to Keep Sane....

I'm just taking a few minutes to reflect. Building the bike was [somewhat] easy. Sure there were lots of little one-off problems to solve, as is with any "custom" situation. But having to tune carburetors goes to a whole new level!

2-stroke bikes are a completely different animal already, so we're already starting off at a disadvantage- everything has to be just perfect. Then there's the fact that these bikes have been around for so many decades and everyone has them set up differently! Ported cylinders, modified heads and higher compression rates, different air intake systems, expansion chambers, crossover tubes and bottles, reed cages, spacers, etc., not to mention differences in altitude, climate and fuel. So one bike's setup isn't going to be the same as another. And since these bikes are so old, if you've got a more rare pipe, it'll be harder to find someone with another to help you. Yes, there are plenty of forums and QA websites to help, and there are general formulas and methodologies to help get them dialed in, but in the end it's still your headache.

Plus when starting with a freshly built bike and something's not working right, it's not always easy to figure out what is the issue that's hold you back. Since the entire bike is a "system", one area/component can cause another to not function properly. i.e. if your electrical isn't functioning properly you may not get a spark, so the motor won't fire. Or more recently in my case, the head bolts weren't tightened enough, so I was loosing compression hence making it harder to start. So in order to work on one problem, you have to know that the other factors are working.

Last week, I did the famous Dave Feist carb mod (which is a refinement of the Dale Alexander carb mod), which basically reverts the "modern" RD carburetors back to the older R5 carburetors. As I understand it, the R5 carbs were using the primary-type needle jets and had amazing fuel flow. When the RD series came along, the bleed-type needle jets were employed, introducing better gas mileage and emissions. I bought the various Mikuni parts from EconomyCycle.com, as I already had some of the included items in their packaged kit. The conversion simply opens the air jet to 2mm by drilling out the brass ball, then swapping the bleed jet to primary, then swapping out the needle for a more compatible needle. So much fuel is free to flow that smaller main jets are needed that if using bleed-type jets.

I'm still in the process of tuning the carburetors. I just want to be able to pop wheelies like the bike's supposed to, and to know that if I take it out to the track or on a hard ride, the engine will be fine (not seize or foul out). And I know that if I can't figure, I can always bail and hand it over to BRG Racing to stick a sniffer up her ass and Dyno tune her.

Since the Dave F. carb mod, I'm feeling more confident about not hurting the engine (although now I hear ticking noises coming from the top end). I keep a long running Excel spreadsheet with all the different combinations of carb variables i have tried. For a while, the engine would keep dying on me when I take her out for test runs. After the first time, I just bring extra spark plugs with me, since the issue seems to be plug fouling. I'm still learning lots as I go and I'm not always sure what's happening to my engine. But as far as I can logically reason, if the bike dies and new plugs bring her back to life, then the plugs are fouling, which is most likely caused by a fuel mixture that is too rich. As long as the oil injector is working (and is hooked up), then the fuel is getting lubrication and the engine [in theory] shouldn't seize. I'm finally getting out on some longer test rides that demonstrate that the plugs are darker than they should be. I do believe that I have the pilot jets and needle positions figured out, so it's just the main jets now.

I'm constantly feeling that I may just have to resign the bike to a professional tune. But if I have to get the bike up to 500 miles on the new motor first, chances are good that I have effectively figured out the jetting anyway. I'm about half way there now on miles. We'll just have to see...

I Hate to Admit It....But I Might Have Overlooked Something...

I went back to a more conservative jetting setting and within 5-6 kicks. I took a short video for Julian to show him that the bike was actually running and to demonstrate the popping that I told him the bike was experiencing. When I reviewed the clip, I noticed that some of the popping was coming from the head gasket, that puffs of smoke were coming out when it popped! I suspected that maybe the head bolts needed a little tightening. Indeed they did!

I checked the bolts and some were so loose that I could unscrew them by my finger strength! I guess it's my fault that I didn't think of this earlier, since the motor was freshly built. But I would have thought that Paul should have told me that after heat cycling the motor a number of times, I should tighten up the head bolts!! Details, Paul!

I tightened the bolts to 17 ft/lbs. in a criss-cross pattern across the entire head, since it's a one-piece head. Amazingly afterwards, the bike started on 2 kicks! And that's when the engine was dead cold from a sit overnight!! I heat cycled and cooled the engine 4 or 5 times and retorqued the bolts over and over again. Funny thing- the popping went away!! as well as the puffs of smoke!

So the loose head could explain a bunch of things going wrong. First of all, the engine wasn't getting good compression, which would make it hard to start the bike. Also it made it harder to reach the top end, running out of power. Secondly, the fuel ratio in the combustion chamber was more lean, because every time the piston moved downward to do a filling cycle, it would be pulling in additional air through the head gasket leak! So suddenly my A/F mixture was all off and all the testing I did has to be done all over again!

After a little testing, I calculated that I would be able to move down to a smaller pilot again. So I popped in the 30 pilots and I put in smaller mains, moving to 250's. I took the bike out on a run and it ran nicely on the low end. (I still have to work on the mid-range.) I took her down Isabel and yanked on the throttle WOT. The bike actually pulled up to 8500 rpm, that's the redline!! It probably could have gone into the red, but I didn't want to hurt the motor just yet. Just after that, the bike died, running on one cylinder. At first I thought that maybe I seized the engine, but after testing I believe that I just fouled one of the plugs. I looked at both the plugs and they were a pretty nice tan. I think maybe one of those old spark plugs just gave out. I'll pop some newer ones in and do more testing tomorrow.

The 2T Shuffle

It's been a couple of weeks now that I've been fiddling with the jetting off and on. There was a point where I had the low end cracking pretty nicely into the mid-range, but when I tried to hit the open throttle, the bike would just bog, never really getting past 6500 rpm. Making the change to a larger pilot jet really helped the low end, plus I raised the needle just a bit.

In my quest to perhaps still take the bike to someone for tuning, I called and left messages with a couple of parties- Roland Cushway, a well-known internationally famous 2-stroke tuner who worked with Erv Kanemoto, and has won 5 national titles! The other was BRG Racing. I wasn't even sure that it was Roland's phone number, but I left a message anyway. To my surprise later the next evening, I got a call back! He told me a little about his history, but he's very modest about it. He told me that he's more of a machinist. I told him what I've got and he gave me an education in 2T theory! He did have some very good suggestions, some that might be a little over my skill set. The conversation lasted about an hour- I was very surprised that he was that engaged! I really felt honored to have even been able to speak to this man of such greatness!

I also got a call back from BRG Racing. KC called me. He's the owner of the shop. He told me that it would probably be about $400 to do the job, which included about 4.5 hours of labor and dyno runs. They would change the timing, gaps and needles as needed- everything was included in the price. I told him that I would give him a shout in about a month when I've got more miles on the new motor.

Meanwhile I answered a Facebook post to someone who was looking for an RD400 engine case. Turns out that he actually lives in Livermore, so I replied that I've got one. He messaged me and the next day he came by the house. A nice fellow by the name of Julian. I've seen his pictures on the Internet- he's built quite a few bikes and he really knows his way around the Yamaha 2-strokes. I showed him what I've got cooking in my shop. He brought me an assortment of larger Mikuni main jets for me to try out. When he asked me how much I wanted for the case, ti told him that I was going to give it to him- that stopped him dead in his tracks. I really feel like this Yamaha 2-stroke thing is a community. I've met so many helpful people over the decades all having to do with this bike, if he could use the case, he can have it. But I did ask in return that he help me get my bike running and that I may need to borrow some tools. We agreed it was a deal!

A couple of days passed. I tried making some more changes to my carbs, going BIG, but the bike didn't want to start. That's when Julian came over, while my carbs were all over the place. He brought over a couple of timing dial gauges and asked if I wanted to do my timing change to 2mm BTDC now. I said sure!

I showed him a new method that I just pinched off the Internet where you actually use the spark of the spark plug to see when the points were opening. We got the left side set up and found that my original timing wasn't 1.8mm like I thought I had it set- it was more like 1.3mm. That could've definitely had an affect on my top end not going so well. He set it to 2.0mm BTDC. The other side was even worse! It was reading 1.1mm!!! Man, I suck! So he dialed that one in to 2.0mm also.

Then he asked if I want to try and start her up. Oh, shit! I have to assemble the bike under the watchful eye of this 2T stud!? Ooohh, the pressure! Plus I can hardly even breathe with this N95 mask on with all this Covid shit going on! I was sweating and panting! But I did get it back together. And wouldn't you know it? it wouldn't start! I kicked and kicked. We threw a spot of fuel down the right cylinder. Still nothing. Maybe the battery needed more of a charge? Perhaps. He suggested pushing the bike down the street to compression start it, but I said no, because we would just have to push it back. I'll leave it till Sunday. But now I'm just dying to see how the bike pulls with the timing set correctly!!

It's Alive!!!!!

A new day, a new challenge, a new chance for success.

I called up a couple of local shops. I spoke to a guy at a Harley shop, but he said he had lots of experience on 2T bikes, so I told him what was going on. I was just desperate to get the bike running. I could tune it myself later. He said he could take the bike, but it wouldn't be done till next week. And unfortunately, he had to leave in an hour to go to a hill climb competition. (Good for him!) But before we got off the phone, he advised me to maybe switch the spark plug wires around, because it really did sound like a timing issue and I agreed. I swapped the wires and it fired up on the second kick! He was right! I'll stop by with some beer for him next week.

We're Getting Close!

Well, I spent some time putting the bike together a little more. I'm so busy now. Between work (which keeps trying to get me to work more hours) and my dad, who is very sick right now, I'm just trying to squeeze a little work in here and there. After work, I'll come home with a to do list and I'll usually try and do a couple of things off the list just to get a jump on the next days tasks.

Over the past two days, I installed the oil tank, battery box, seat pan and fuel tank. I know they sound like such easy tasks, but everything always becomes such a big issue! First I couldn't get the filler neck on the tank. Ultimately, I soaked it in some boiling hot water and it was able to stretch over the opening. Mysteriously, the neck clamp got lost, so I had to take some bailing wire and create a clamp. Then I found that I didn't have the screws to secure down the filler neck! Oh, God! another trip to the hardware store! With the seat pan secured to the frame, the oil cap needed to be cut down to fit the profile. And I had to hack about half an inch off the top of the dip stick too. Then there was the battery box that was such a tight fit that I had to grease the rubber mounting pieces to force it in.

Fitting the seat pan was not really a big deal, except that some powdercoating paint was clogging some of the cotter pin holes, so I had to take some tiny drill bits to them to open them up. The gas tank was a tight and secure fit. But getting that tight hosing over some of the fuel fixtures was a bitch.

I ran down to the local Chevron and bought a gallon of the Supreme 91 stuff. I thought it might be a good idea to do pre-mix for the start up, so the engine wouldn't starve of 2T oil and seize up. Doh! I did a 32:1 ratio. I figure that'll be good for startup until the oil is getting sucked up from the Yamalube system.

While the bike was still on the hydraulic stand, I cut down the rear engine mounting bolt, since the chain was rubbing on it. And I did a quick clean and lube of the brand new chain. I installed the newly painted kick stand and stretched the new retention spring on it. Then I let the bike stand on it's own.

I installed the Factory Pro expansion chambers and attached the new Moose exhaust springs to them. The oil tank was filled and I started putting the pre-mixed gas into the tank. Then panic sets in! The petcock started leaking gas like crazy! The gas was coming through the screw holes! I threw some towels under it, so it wouldn't get on the engine cases too much.

Then came the moment of truth...would the bike start up? I turned the key and made sure the kill switch was on run. then I gave it a kick. Nothing! Then another kick. Still nothing! After about 6 kicks, I turned off the key and gave up. Hmmm....back to the drawing board. Dammit!

Tomorrow I'll try and throw some sealant at that petcock, then I'll check to make sure I'm getting a spark across the plugs. I've emailed Paul to see if he might be able to help me to start it up on Sunday. After he got his money from building my engine, he's been less helpful. Imagine that.

Electrical- My Nemesis

It's been a while since my last update. As for past problems, I was able to pull out one side of the front wheel bearings, then I slipped a very slim shim on top of the spacer, before pressing the bearing back into the wheel, essentially lengthening the spacer just  tiny bit. And voila! It worked like a charm! No more binding wheel bearings and I was successfully able to torque down that front axle to 60 ft/lbs.! Yay! That will surely help the steering system rigidity.

I tried filling the rear brake system, but wasn't successful. I tried to burp it. Also used a MityVac to suction the fluid through. I still never got to the end of the air. I got tired of trying to solve such a simple task. I still have a couple of tricks up my sleeve, but I thought I would give it a rest and move onto something else for a while- something that I've been avoiding since the very beginning. The electrical system.

Mind you, it's been over 10 years, since I dismantled the bike. When I pulled out the electrical harness, I tried to label the ends and take lots of pictures best I could. But over the years, some of the printing on the Dymo tape had faded and become illegible. Plus many moons ago, had some shop in Concord, Grumpy Bear (since defunct), rebuild my alternator. When they returned the bike to me, they used whatever colored wire they had on hand, and they hard-wired the alternator to my harness, doing away with any connectors! They just crimped all the wires together! I was young and naive. The bike worked, so what did I care?

Anyway, so for me to wire the alternator to the harness again, I wanted to do it right, to do it stock again. When Paul built my engine, he installed the original correct colored wires with appropriate connectors, minus one which I didn't happen to have at the time. But in order for me to know how to connect the alternator to the electrical backbone, I had to rebuild the old wiring system, marrying the original parts (wires), just so I could realize what had happened. So my old harness didn't have any alternator connectors, plus some it had other issues. I just happened to have three RD400 harnesses!! 1) my original dilapidated harness  2) one that I had purchased from Australia through the early days (late 1990's) of internet buying/trading and  3) I don't even know where this harness came from- I probably just bought another one off eBay.

Well, after careful analysis, I realized that that Australian harness had too many wires in the front. Let me just put this out there- a simple disclaimer- I suck at ready schematics. So I was afraid to just cap off the "extra" wires, not knowing if I really need them or not. But luckily, the mystery harness was very similar to mine, so I decided to use that one. I did have to re-wrap  much of the harness, but it cleaned up quite nicely!

Since I'm using high output coils with more resistance, I needed to get rid of the resistor unit. I did have to look at the schematic to figure that one out, but it wasn't too bad. I had to construct a robust and complicated spreadsheet with all the connection numbers and appendages they belong to, which really aided in patching together the front of the bike.
I spent a few minutes just to hook up the battery to see if I was on the right track. Moment of truth! I turned the key and the oil and neutral light came on! The headlight worked both low and high beam. And the rear turn signals worked, but they didn't blink, because they're LED. So that's a huge step in the right direction! Encouraging.

Tomorrow I'll start attaching the oil tank on the bike. I might be able to fill fluids too. If I'm lucky, I might try kicking the motor over!

Perfect Timing

Work has been keeping busy lately, so progress is slow. My painted parts are nearly finished, as I anticipate retrieving them sometime this week. Lately I've been working with some small irritating problems- 1) the used bent kickstart lever I purchased from another forum member didn't quite clear my Tarozzi rearset peg and 2) after torquing down on the front axle, the wheel bearings are bound so tightly against the spacer that they are practically seized up!

The kickstart lever wasn't even close to clearing- it needed another 1.5" of clearance. I really didn't feel like taking a torch to the lever discoloring the chrome finish and all. After some email correspondences with Jim at Fast From the Past, he convinced me the newer improved model would clear the peg, so I took a chance and ordered it. Luckily it did! Problem solved!

With the front bearings, I thought that maybe once I swapped out the old bearings for new, that would take care of the clearance/tolerance issue and it would be a done deal. Nope. I got the new bearings in and same issue 

So I had to remove one of the bearings again and now I'm in search of a thin shim, so I can create a little more length on that axle spacer.

I also purchased a dial indicator timing device, so I could get my ignition timed. The indicator was in inches, while I needed to configure the timing in metric- it just took a little calculation and I was all set. The timing is set to 1.8mm BTDC, which should be appropriate for the air intake and chambers I'm running.



I'm hoping to get the electrical cleaned up and wired by the end of next week. Fingers crossed!

DMV Woes

So I trailered up the RD this morning and took a short drive to the local DMV. Another swing and a miss! Since my federal sticker was illegible, I got referred to the CHP. Luckily I made an appointment earlier in anticipation of this problem. Now I have to wait another week to get verified! Oh well, I can probably spend some time polishing and painting the wheels....

Inching Closer to D-Day

I spent the last couple of days painting a couple of parts. I had purchased a fuse panel a long time ago and although it was in excellent condition, it was white. I'm guessing that perhaps some previous owner thought it might match the color scheme of his bike better or something like that. While I was at it, I gave my battery box a good scrubbing to get the surface rust off, then I shot it with a few coats of black paint. I was finally able to put some of the new rubber parts on the battery box. Check that off my list!

Today I spent some time tooling on the carbs- installing the new pilot jets and mains. The pilot was size 30 and just for a guaranteed starting point, I installed 270's. It'll probably run rich, but better rich than lean. I still haven't adjusted the A/F screw yet.

Then I started assembling the bike for the DMV. I called my local CHP office the other day, thinking that maybe they make house calls, so I wouldn't have to get a trailer. But no, I would still have to drag my bike down to their office for the verification process. But Officer Buchannon did explain to me the DMV inspection process, informing me that I wouldn't even have to step foot inside the DMV building- I just need to drive my trailered bike around back, where a DMV employee will be waiting for me to do the VIN verification, clipboard in hand. As far as completion- the brakes do not need to be operational, nor does the bike need to start up, so I'm going to leave all the main electrical parts off the bike (battery and harness), as well as cables, that way the disassembly will easier and I can avoid the current headache of hooking up the harness just for the inspection.

I made some great progress. First I had to scrub and install the old nasty swingarm back on the frame, since I farmed out the other swingarm for powdercoating. After I reassembled the rear brake and shocks, I got the carbs and intake system on there, as well as the side covers. I had to do a little scrubbing, so the red parts would look nice. I installed the gas tank and lid. Then I put together the rear fender situation. The bike is probably about 95% inspection ready- I still have to remove the cables from the instrumentation, tuck away some of the wiring, then get the tires and wheels on the bike.

So the next major step is to finish up those wheels. I don't know why I've been so reluctant to work on them. Probably because the task seems so daunting. I still need to polish up the outer rims, install the new bearings, install the new tubes and tires, then shoot paint. Yup. sounds like a real pain in the ass all right...

I did take a minute to check out the riding ergonomics on the bike. I know that the position will be slightly different in it's final rendition, since I'll be installing a lower seat. But still, I was thrilled to be able to get on it. It has been over 10 years, since I last sat on the bike! And I have been dreaming of putting new rearsets on the RD for even longer than that! So to actually realize the work that I've been doing was pure awesomeness!!!

Back to the Grind

After a 3-week break, I'm finally back working on the RD with a passion! Actually I was running so behind schedule that the first thing I had to do when I got back from vacation was rework my build schedule with some new deadlines.

At the beginning of the week, I tore apart the carburetors to take inventory of what parts I actually still need. I cleaned and rebuilt these carbs over 10 years ago, then put them in a box for safe keeping. At the time, I did take notes of what was needed, but now looking back, the notes were unclear and incomplete- the only way to be certain of needed parts was to do another tear down and take inventory. Luckily the only parts needed were the main and pilot jets- exactly what Paul told me I needed to order for the newly built engine! I turned to my trusty source, economycycle.com, and ordered a range of Mikuni mains from 250-280 and pilot jets in 30.

For the past 2 days, I've been working on fitting the seat pan to the frame and grinding off unnecessary metal. My final seat pan fixture system was four clevis pins brazed to the frame. That way, I can just remove the clevis pins and the seat comes off. (I still need to access beneath the seat to fill the oil tank.) I also fabricated a license plate and LED brake light mount out of some leftover steel I had laying around from some previous project, then brazed those onto the back of the frame.

I removed the two grommet tabs which used to hold the stock airbox in place. I also ground off the center stand mounts that stick out off the rear of the frame, being careful not to cut too much away, since the right side holds the brake pedal spring mount peg, and both are used as engine mounts. While I was down there, I also decided to remove the stock footpeg mounts. Tons of grinding in a hot little garage on a 100°F+ day!!

The end result was very satisfying! Tomorrow I will take the new unmolested seat pan and fit it to the pins on the bike, that way I can send it out for paint. I need to remove the steering lock stuff (door, pin and lock core if possible), the do a final sand on the ground areas of the frame, then it'll be ready for powdercoating. I'll try and cut and shape the front fender tomorrow, so I can run all the parts out for paint this week.

After all the parts have been prepped for powdercoating and paint, then I'm free to continue working on the DMV build, so I can get the bike registered! One step at a time....

The Heart of the Matter

Today is the day I have dreamt about for a very long time. My RD400 motor was assembled and ready to be picked up!! I arrived a few minute before 9am at Paul's house. As always, he had his garage opened already and was waiting for me. I saw the engine and tt was beautiful!

He helped me install the shift rod and tachometer drive components. Then he went over the break-in routine for the motor. Of course, half of that went in one ear and out the other. We told stories, he helped me to load all the parts into my Jeep, then I was off.

I spent part of the rest of the day cleaning engine mounting parts, mixing and matching with a spare set that I had on hand. One of my front mount spacer tubes got slightly dented, so the mounting bolt didn't want to slide through, meaning I had to use one of the yucky corroded ones. I tried cleaning/polishing it for a while with some success, but in the end, I just wanted to plug the motor in the frame, so the refurbishing will have to wait till the motor moves to the other frame. I also discovered that I am one rear mounting bolt short of a full set! After scouring through my archive of old documentation photos, I noticed that I never even had one in the first place! Thank God for eBay! In the end, I was successful in mounting the motor in the frame, minus one rear mounting bolt.

I fitted the carbs on the engine, then the Y-boot with the K&N air filter on it. (I still have to locate the manifold clamps. I hope I don't need to order more parts!) Surprisingly, the filter sticks way above the frame rails where the new seat will go. Hmmm...I don't ever recall anyone making mention of this problem. I do know that K&N makes a shorter filter. Maybe others have been using the short filters? In any case, I do happen to have a foam Unifilter that I can fit on there if I don't feel like buying a another K&N filter.

This week is going to be hella busy. I'm working a shit ton of hours and weird shifts, due to coworkers taking random vacation days off, and the management not hiring much needed extra help. I'm also shoving off for a cruise to Alaska on Friday. Of course I have to work all the way through Thursday, then take my dog and drop off a second car at a relative's house after work, not to mention that it's actually my birthday that day :(

But if I get the chance, I would love to start hooking up some cables, getting a little closer to a "complete" bike, so I can get the bike VIN verified by my local DMV. What a total hassle!!!!

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.

Restoring the Hand Controls

The last time I operated the bike, the old hand controls were still functional, but the paint is well worn and just look beat. Surprisingly, the decals all look pretty good, with the exception of the Off/Run/Off sticker, which is has been completely rubbed out. I looked around online for new decals and they can be bought for a very reasonable price from DiabloCycle.com (formerly Reproduction Decals). It's not that I don't want to spend an extra $7 on stickers, but I really want to try and keep as much original stuff from the bike as possible and these old original stickers are certainly worth keeping.

I spent some time sprawled out across my kitchen table disassembling all the parts for a deep cleaning. I stole a Run switch from a lot of hand controls I bought a while back and swapped it out with the deeply gouged existing one. A couple of wires did come unsoldered when I took the parts apart, but that was easily fixed. All the parts were otherwise in very good shape- nothing broken or worn.

I carefully masked off all the stickers and gave the parts some new coats of satin black paint. I was able to find a Off/Run/Off decal from one of the other spare hand controls and applied it to the part. A little spit shine on the wires and the buttons and we're good as new!

When I put the clutch perch and hand control on the bar, I was so excited that I texted my old housemate this picture. I purchased this polished clutch lever off of eBay back in 1999, when we were living in Castro Valley together. I have literally been waiting 20 years to put this lever back on my bike again! :D

Time for Brakes

It's finally time to work on the brakes. Since I had an epiphany and change of wheel plans on my recent vacation, I had to order some rear disc brake parts, namely the master cylinder and another caliper rebuild kit. I opted to buy both OEM NOS parts through EconomyCycle.com (as I did with the front brake system)- nothing fits quite like the real thing. Sure, it was twice the price of reproduction parts, but I would rather have piece of mind knowing that the stuff is going to work like it should.

When I think back on the days when I was a wee young lad and I just first got the bike, I didn't know a goddamned thing about working on motorcycles. Cars for that matter either. I think the most I ever did with that bike was change the oil. I did have to get the rectifier and the clutch cable replaced, but other than that, I did very little maintenance. Repairs were made over the next few years- the generator had to be rebuilt, new tires and the carbs rejetted, since I installed air filter pods and ditched the air box.

In the end, it was my lack of maintenance that led to the bike trying to kill me. The rear shock shafts were bent, the front forks were bent back an inch or two, due to me crashing into the back of a car, due to my brakes not really doing much to stop me. I never even checked the brakes for fluid. So I guess that I really deserved that. So when I decided to rebuild the brake system, I'm going to do it right and give them a little more performance.

Some 10 years ago, I bought a second used front master with the intentions of marrying the two to rebuild my original one. I started to disassemble them on a dinner plate, and there they sat for the next 10 years. Lol.

Taking apart the master cylinders wasn't much of a problem, but I did have to buy some new c-clip needle nose pliers to get the piston out. Funny thing though- as I was working on the disassembly process, I realized that the two master cylinders were different! The one that came with my bike was marked Nissin 14 on the underside, while the used one I bought said Asco 12. After doing some research, I discovered that my bike should have come with the Asco 12  m/c. Interesting... Some time ago, I also bought a NOS front master cylinder cap and that too fit the spare m/c. So I will surmise that a owner previous to me swapped it out. I am trying to build the bike to be closer to OEM, so I'm going to use the Asco m/c, plus the rebuild kit I bought probably won't fin the 14 anyway. The kit went in without a hitch. There was a slight bit of corrosion inside the cylinder, but it was so minor that I don't think it's going to make any difference. The rear m/c was rebuilt with equal ease. There was a little more cleaning and polishing to do, since there was the copper connector that had to be shined up. I just so happened to have a brand new NOS pressure switch, so I just swapped it out with the gross old one. (I have no idea why I have these random NOS parts just sitting around in my bins.) I masked off all the holes and gave them a nice new coat of paint. They look spectacular!

The calipers were a different story. Now remember, these brakes have not moved in over 20 years. I knew that getting the pistons out was going to be a bitch. I looked for the solution online for days! I worked on the front caliper first. I did find a helpful tutorial from HVCcycle.com. I used it loosely as a road map to work with. I also found some other hints online for using a grease gun, if compressed air doesn't work. (The grease gun threads will fit the front caliper.) One piston came out with air. The other piston came out with the grease gun.

The rear brake caliper was more of a problem. The grease gun fitting will not fit properly in the caliper, but it will fit just good enough if you're careful. For the bleeder side, the grease gun would not thread into that side, so I tried my darnedest with compressed air. After that, I tried to get the grease gun to squeeze through the bleed nipple. No bueno. But it did give me an idea. I eventually figured out that zerk grease fittings have the same thread pitch as the bleed nipple if you get the metric ones. (And no, I could not find anything online that would suggest this as a solution to pushing out the caliper piston. Go figure! I can't be the only one who's ever had this problem.) It worked like a charm! Both calipers got painted and look fantastic!

I cleaned up the rear brake mount and bar, then painted them. I'm very close to finishing up both brake systems. Both front and rear are receiving Galfer stainless steel brake lines. I'm still waiting for the rear ones to arrive, since it was back ordered. I bought a bottle of Motul RBF 600 and waiting eagerly to get everything filled up! One more thing- the front brake caliper will need a new banjo bolt to accommodate the new brake line, since the original system was a hard line.

Some REAL Progress!!

It's been a while since I last checked in. A lot of progress has been made. Although it took a lot of trips to the hardware and the auto parts stores, the forks did get stripped, cleaned, gutted, parts replaced and upgraded, then reassembled. I was also able to pick up some fine used parts deals along the way, like a set of Woodcraft clip-ons and a bent HVC kickstarter lever.

The fork sliders weren't all that hard to strip and polish- they came out very nice indeed. But in order to reassemble the forks back together again, I had to install the triple-tree and it was getting some work done, so they had to wait. A long while back, a friend did some fab work for me, taking a RD400 top yolk, grinding off the handlebar mount supports and filling them in, then repainting them silver, so they would look like vintage style TD3 top triples. Although the general shape of the yolk looked fantastic, the finishing work wasn't as perfect as I would have wanted it to be, so I stripped it, dug out the old filler and filled the holes again with JB Weld SteelStik (thinking that this filler would be harder). It took some work to get it to fill just right and it took many cycles of paint and sanding to get to where I was comfortable with it. In the end, I was extremely satisfied with the work that I had done- this time the top triple was painted black.

I also installed the All Balls steer roller bearings and races. If you ever do this job, please note that the races do not fit in tight with precision- both the upper and lower races rattle just a little bit when installed. They barely even needed to be "pressed" in. Also the top race will stick above the frame by about 2mm, which is normal according to the support tech I spoke to at All Balls. I popped them back out and used some Loc-Tite red 271 to keep them in place, greased the shit out of the bearings, then buttoned everything back up.

Just for yucks, I installed the clip-ons and did a mock up of the gauges as well. I'm feeling so happy that this thing is really starting to come together!

 

I just took a little vacation overseas. While away, I did some thinking and I'm going to change my design of the bike, once again. I'm feeling that I'm going to reuse the same original cast mag wheels and ditch the idea of wired wheels. The good news is that I can save a bundle not having to build up new wheels (rims, spokes, etc.), but the downside is that now I have a bunch of RD350 wheel bearings in my possession and now I need to buy some RD400 stuff! Also I will have to rebuild the RD400 rear disc brake system. But then now getting rearsets will be much more straight forward!

It's funny. The longer I take to build this bike, the more it keeps going back to the factory design. Remember, when I first set out on this build, I was going to build up a full blown TD3 replica with fairings and all. Now it's going to look very OEM, except for me chopping up the front fender and the seat/tail will be modified. I'm okay with that :)