Finally Finished Up Those Pesky Wheels!

Tomorrow I'm heading to the CHP to get VIN verified, hopefully for the last time. Please Lord, just let Officer Buchannon sign me off! And please let AAA DMV take my verification proof and registration payment, so I won't have to go back to that dreaded DMV line to wait 2 hours!

I don't know why, but I have totally been dreading doing the work on these wheels. Maybe because I don't know what I'm doing and there's a whole lot of guessing going on?

So last week, I had Cycle Gear mount the new tires. When I went to pick them up, they told me that they didn't use the tubes, nor were they able to fit them in anyway. I do know for a fact that they fit, as many others online have done it, but I'm sure it takes much more skill than they have. I didn't argue too much, although I was slightly leery that they might blow off in the middle of a turn one day. But they did seem to be holding air pretty well. I told them I'm sleep on it and if it really bothered me, we'd have to figure something out. Well, after searching around the internet, I think that since the RD400 was literally the first bike in history to come from the factory with cast mags, Yamaha didn't really think about putting an indent around the rim for the bead. Other subsequent models came with tubeless tires and their wheel profiles looked exactly the same. Days later, the tires are still holding air.

So over this Labor Day weekend, I was able to squeeze some time in today to get my wheels painted and polished. Yesterday morning, I stopped by my FLAP and grabbed me a free bearing setting tool rental. Then I went home and pounded the wheel bearings into place. All went well.

This morning, I loaded up my swamp cooler with ice and water and got busy finishing the polishing of the sides of the rims. One of the wheels, I had already done, but it needed a little touch-up love, since the CG guys gave it some scratches with their tire irons. The task didn't take long.

It took me about an hour to mask up the wheels for painting, but it really made the paint job so much easier to do. A little thinner afterwards to clean up the overspray and I was good to go! I cleaned up the brake discs, associated hardware and other wheel hardware parts. Then I installed the new 520 37T rear sprocket. It looks solid. I can't wait to give it a whirl!

Here are some before and after pics of the wheels.

The gold paint was a little brighter than I had anticipated, but I'm good with it. The job came out fantastic and the paint against the polish was tight.

I got the wheels mounted on the bike, so tomorrow morning, I just have to install the exhaust chambers and I good to roll the bike back on the trailer. Wish me luck!!

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....

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!