I Love Mondays!

This afternoon, there was a knock at the door. The mailman had brought my parts. Here's a picture of that awesome swingarm I got from Dave. It's been blasted, painted and rebuilt with cool parts! It was powdercoated in a fashion that it follows the finish of the factory paint. sadly, it's going to be a while until I can bolt it up.

A NOS throttle cable also got delivered today. I found it on Ebay for $25! I don't think anyone was looking for it, since it was labeled as a Daytona cable. Yay, for me!

Struck Gold!

I found a promising ad on Craigslist with someone selling an RD400 for $800. In the picture, it was kind of a basket case, but I did spot some pretty nice looking chambers on it, so I tried calling the phone number posted, as there was no email address on the ad. I left two messages, but I didn't get any calls back. Later that night, I spotted someone on a 2-stroke forum drawing more attention to the ad. So I figured that the guy had already sold off the bike.

The next day, as a last ditch effort, I called the number again, and unexpectedly, someone picked up the call! The bike had not been sold and he had two sets of pipes available. The chambers I was interested in were first thought to be Spec II pipes, but after more careful examination, he reported that they were actually Factory Products. I gave him my email address and he sent me a few snaps of the pipes and they were good! We made arrangements for me to drive out and check out the goods over the upcoming weekend.

On Saturday, I drove out to meet the seller. He was putting his house on the market in a few weeks and his wife asked him to liquidate his pile of bike parts, since he hadn't riden any motorcycles for years. Basically, he had three RD400's, all in different phases of decay, the worst being he one stripped to the frame and was about to chuck the frame. He had boxes and plastic crates of parts, some parts had never been used before! The Factory pipes were in pretty good condition- some minor dents, but no serious rust, and the silencers were in excellent shape. One of the silencers got bent in a little at the end of the pipe, but it was no big deal. He was happy accepting $125 for the pipes. What a great deal!!

We got talking about bikes and other stuff. As the conversation lingered, he kept pulling parts out and offering them to me. He gave me a bag of new engine gaskets (minus a few gaskets), so I kept asking if he had other parts. The end result was I drove home with the chambers, a stator (with that rubber plug that I was missing), a practically new headlamp with the undented, uncrashed ring (it will need to be replated), and two NEVER BEEN USED VM28 Mikuni carbs!! These carbs have never even touched gas! There are a couple of jets and gaskets that have corroded, but that's not a problem. He was going to give me all this "extra" stuff, but that would've been like stealing from him, so I offered him another $40. He was pretty indifferent about the cash, but I felt better that I gave him something.

In summation, for $165, I got everything you see in the picture, plus a small green container full of extra miscellaneous carb parts, like main jets and the such (again, never been taken out of their bags). I was due for a little luck coming my way- I have nothing to complain about here!

A New RD Friend

A funny thing happened, while I was cruising the web, looking for parts.  I just did a general search for "RD400 parts craigslist" wondering what I might find across the U.S., hopefully within recent times, and I found a very intriguing posting from Cresent City, California, which is a ways up the coast from me, but nonetheless, still in California.

The posting had all sorts of assorted goodies listed, so I emailed the author to see if he had any chambers.  Dave emailed me back and responded that he did not, but he had some cool Goki air caps, which he sent me pictures of.  The emails went back and forth, as we shared our enthusiasm for RD's and 2-strokes in general.  We talked about the old staple RD400 stores, like Moto Carrera and Spec II, and where the industry has gone to.  He used to live here in the Bay Area, owning a motorcycle shop at Sears Point Raceway, back in the day, before they sold their name to Infineon.  He got to work with some of the first roadrace bikes, as Yamaha TZ's were coming and going through his shop with regularity.

One thing led to another and I bought a very sweet RD400 swingarm that has been powdercoated and refurbished, pressed with bronze bushings, fitted with a TZ350 spindle with some other custom work done for $110 shipped!  This thing is ready to bolt up and go into service immediately, which is going to save me money in buying all the parts separately, plus having to get the old swingarm blasted and painted.  It's something that I wasn't necessarily looking for, but after Dave read my blog, he felt that the swingarm would be a perfect match for my project.  In addition to the swingarm, he threw in a 2-stroke vintage tuning book, something that I'm sure went out of print long ago.  I know that he could've sold the piece for a whole lot more, so for that I am SO appreciative.

I find it interesting how my long journey in trying to get this bike restored/built has introduced me to a lot of nice people who share the love for these crazy 2-strokes.  I wonder what new surprises are in store for just around the corner....

Clutch Time

After trying a few different methods, I finally got the clutch apart.  I didn't want to hit it with an impact wrench for reasons that  1) I don't own a compressor nor an impact wrench and  2) I didn't feel like buying them items.  Since those old-time clutch holder tools aren't readily available anymore (unless you want to spend $40 on one from Motion Pro and I've read that the fit is kind of iffy), I ended up bolting together a couple of steel and friction clutch plates together, which worked terrifically!  Once the clutch was locked down, it hardly took any pressure to break that nut.

Hoping I Have a Straight Frame (or Two)

After a very long break, I'm finally starting to get some more work done on the bike.  My main sticking point, besides work and the new puppy (and everything else) has been getting that damned clutch apart off the bike.  I tried getting a strap wrench at Sears, but that couldn't get enough purchase on the clutch boss and it kept spinning, when trying to crank off the nut.  My next attempt will be bolting a few plates together to keep the primary driven gear and clutch boss together.  I can then shove a rag in the gears and the whole assembly should be stable enough to work with.

Today, I finally got around to taking my frames in to get checked out.  One frame, I purchased off of Ebay, complete with a clean California title that was up to date at the time.  I quickly put that into non-op, so I won't have to pay registration fees, while I'm building up the bike.  I had let my old registration go for so long that it would take a LOT of money to bring it up to date.

I took both frames to the Frame Man, in Sacramento, as suggested from many local shops and friends.  Apparently, they are the place to go.  I met Pat, who wrote up my ticket.  We chatted for a while and traded stories about 2-strokes and whatnots.  There is no charge to evaluate the frames- with any luck, at least one of them will be straight and good to go.  They're a little backlogged, so it's going to be a while till they get back to me.  Heck! I've waited this long to get it done- what's another four weeks?

My New Best Friend

I just spent two weeks on the road (work related), so I was pretty eager to get my hands dirty and dig into my motor. The prelude to my [work] day was a shopping spree to the local hardware stores. I needed a 29mm socket to pop off the clutch nut, but things went a little differently. Home Depot didn't have squat for their single socket selection. I did happen to find 16oz rubber mallets for under $5. That wasn't on my shopping list, but it made me happy, so I bought it. I later went to Lowes for the socket- they didn't have the 29mm, but they had a 30. I thought I'd take a chance that it still might fit, so I bought it. Silly me. What'd you know...it didn't fit. Oh, well...nothing a quick trip to Sears can't fix.

I spent some time splitting the "new" case. Man! am I glad I bought that new rubber mallet! That made easy and quick work of getting the two halves apart! It's the best five bucks I've spent in a long time. The case came apart fine, but the tranmission was a bitch to get out. The sealant was really tough to break apart and I didn't want to whomp on the shafts too hard. With a little patience and a piece of wood, everything turned out good.

Next came the old motor. I pulled off the heads and it was looking grim. There was so much carbon buildup in the domes of the head and all over the crowns of the pistons it was ridiculous. I hammered on the cylinders with my new mallet and yanked them off. I was a little surprised to see that I had two different types of pistons! The left side did not look like it had the holes typical of an RD400. I'm pretty sure it's a piston for an RD350. What kind of yahoo owned this bike before me? No wonder the bike was always a little hard to tune. I'm glad I'm doing a complete teardown, so I can build it up the right way. I got the pistons and bearings off, now it's time to take out the clutch.

I did happen to make it out to Sears and they did have the 29mm socket that I needed. This time, I brought the nut in with me, so I could make absolutely sure I wouldn't need to do any returns, since Sears now has a very strict return policy.

Zero Factory No More

While traveling on business this past week, I happened to be in Torrance, California. I have read so much about Oshima and the incredible pipes he creates for RD400's at his shop, Zero Factory. I found his phone number and address on the Internet and called his shop. No one picked up- there was a generic phone message, so I left a generic message. I went hunting for his shop. What I found was a Japanese auto parts place. I asked the guy what happened to Zero Factory. Apparently, Oshima couldn't didn't want to deal with the high rent, so he went looking for another place for his business. That was two and a half years ago. Bummer.

I called the phone number again, leaving a detailed message this time, just in case Oshima actually gets the messages. To my surprise, he called me back. He told me that he never found another place to set up his shop. I asked him if he's still doing work anyway, like out of his garage or something. He told me no and he wasn't willing to make me a set of pipes. Oh, well, looks like I might be going with Spec 2.