SIP Update

Well, I'm pretty bored with this whole Covid Shelter-In-Place thing. I don't have it quite as bad as some others- since I'm a healthcare worker, I need to go out and get to my job. But still, on my days off, I'm here at home trying to keep busy with whatever I can.

Today, I decided to get working again on Angie, my RD400. When I left off at the end of last season, I still needed to get the bike properly jetted. I messed around with a few carb configurations, but it actually resulted in killing the bike altogether. For about a week, I tried to get the motor to fire, but it was a done deal :(

I woke up early. Got some coffee in me and started picking at the bike. I hunted down the original carb configurations for when I had my first successful start and I figured I'd go from there. I swapped out the main jets from 280's back to 260's. I found that I had put in 27.5 pilot jets, so I returned them to 30's. I checked the needle position and the A/F mixture screw. I double-checked my plugs to make sure that I wasn't running 7's. I made sure they were gapped to 0.025-0.028". I wasn't entirely sure if which plug wires went to which plugs, so it was going to be a crapshoot. After a few unsuccessful attempts, the bike finally roared back to life! It ran hella smokey and the idle was high, but at least it was running again!

While I was tooling around the bike today, I also installed the aftermarket horn, although I didn't bother yet to clean and paint the mount.

Last year, when I put her to bed, I was thinking of doing to jetting myself, but now I think I'm over it. There's a shop in Martinez that can tune it in. I spoke with them last year. They had just finished doing an RZ350 and they were comfortable with 2-strokes. I think they quoted me around $500, which is pricey, but I just want it done correctly.

The majority of what still needs to get done is the jetting and the last parts of the electrical that I haven't been able to get working yet- the brake light and the turn signals. I found a small shop in Livermore that said they could hunt down the electrical problems. I'm in the home stretch!

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!

My Church of Motorcycle

Lately I've had a lot of little stuff going on, so I've just been picking at the bike little by little. I picked all the parts off the original frame and started installing them on the Primose frame. I got the engine in there and installed the new headset in the frame, then installed the forks. Funny thing (not so funny)- when I was torquing the triple crown nut down and had the forks flopped all the way over to one side, that small amount of effort knocked off the front steering lock stop that I had brazed onto the frame! I was astounded at how weak the bond was! Maybe when the frame went into the oven after powdercoating (twice) it weakened the braze? In any case, I had to sand down the surrounding surface and braze it on again!

Then there's that same problem that I had before with the front wheel bearings. After torquing the front axle, the spacer got smashed in there between both bearings that the bearings wouldn't spin anymore. So I thought that it might be different after I put in the new bearings- perhaps the old bearings were so loose that they moved too much. Well, after putting the new set of bearings in, the same thing happened! Argh!!! I think I'm going to just add a thin shim between one of the bearings and the spacer, hoping that it would create some relief. I'll get to that later- that problem isn't going anywhere.

I also had an issue that had been bugging me for a while- the pre-bent kickstarter lever that I bought from another forum member did not clear the Tarrozzi rearset peg. I somehow thought that it could be an issue with fitment from the Marsh frame, so I decided I would revisit the problem when I swapped the motor to the Primrose frame. Guess what?! The problem didn't go away!

I knew that the PO had purchased that kickstart lever from HVC and I also had the feeling like Fast From The Past had the exact same product, so I emailed them both to see if they knew of a fix. Brad from HVC had a fairly useless (unhelpful) response. Jim from FFTP suggested that perhaps the "boss" was not straight (the piece that actually clamped onto the spline). Since I had the original boss, I swapped out the parts, but it yielded the same results. I emailed the guy I bought the kickstarter from, just to give him a shout. He was very receptive and offered the refund my money if I chose to return it. I did still have the option of throwing some heat at the lever (the original straight lever for that matter), but I didn't really want to discolor the chrome. Part of me was saying that I shouldn't have to modify an already modified part- it should work as it was designed to work. I saw that there was a new and improved lever that HVC and FFTP was selling now. Jim said that if I bought a new lever from him and it didn't clear the peg, I could return it, so I pulled the trigger and bought another new lever. After almost 2 weeks of dicking around with this problem, I put the new lever on and guess what?! It clears the peg!! I emailed Jim and shared the good news. Problem solved!

So today I got a bunch of stuff done! I mounted the license plate and LED bolts (only to find out later that I had to rip it off the frame, since it wouldn't clear the rear tire), and the rear turn signals. I cut and installed the rear fender. I cabled up the carburetors and oil injector pump, then synced and adjusted the play on them. I installed all the carb overflow hoses. Then I mounted the rear wheel, cut and installed the chain. (That was a bitch, since I couldn't press out the pin, then I finally realized that I had 2 chain breaker tools sitting in my tool drawer!) I installed the clutch cable and adjusted the clutch lever. The clutch lever itself was a little sticky, so I had to sand down the surfaces a little to relieve the pressure points.

All in all, it was a pretty productive day. More positives than negatives. Can't beat that with a stick.

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!!