RZ350NC2 Resto Mod

[kpke]

12/4/21

More wheel polishing, well, sanding today. On the front wheel only. I used the mini DA starting with 240 grit and it turns out my kit of 3 inch sanding discs I bought steps up to 600 from 240. Nothing in between. Weird. But it actually appears that this will work out. I tried buffing after the 600 and it works if I can get really hard pressure but when I get into the tricky curved areas if it gets stuck it will smooth out the sharp edge. So that’s not gonna work. I’m going to DA with 800, then 1000, then see if that will buff out without so much pressure. This is taking way too long.

12/5/21

It’s quite foggy out this morning so screw the wheel polishing task.

Today I brazed the fork cartridges. I think it came out pretty good. Especially for having never done it before. The careful filing took a bit of time.

One done, one to go.

Done. Except for making the emulators fit properly. Are you there Julian?

Brazing video

[YOUTUBE]7-vm-vRPvM8[/YOUTUBE]

 

[kpke]

12/10/21

On the front wheel I DA sanded the spokes with 800 then 1000. Then wet sanded with 1000. Then the perimeter I wet sanded with 400, 600, 800, then 1000. I took the wheel to the buffer and the perimeter came out quite nice. The spoke areas just won’t polish the same. Then hand polished with some 35-year-old simichrome polish I happen to have. This is the end result and this is how it is going to stay.

12/11/21

Today I gave the rear wheel the DA sander treatment ending with manual sanding with 1000.It looks pretty good. Still needs to be buffed to match the front. And I’m noticing I need to do something to the center of the front wheel, probably walnut blast the six little spokes. No sanding and no buffing in this area. I still need to paint the wheels. Quite a project these wheels have been.

The DA sander treatment took about two hours.

Started when it was still in the 30s outside.

Rear wheel pre-buffing on the left and front on the right post buffing.

I met Julian at his shop and he machined the fork damping rods so that the emulators nest in them properly. Thank you Julian! What a guy. He did this for me and his next job was machining an aluminum spacer for Mean Dads RZ350 rear shock. Then he goes to work on his masterpiece of custom swing arms for his custom frames.

 

[Lonster]

Nice progress. Thanks for sharing the video too. Seeing things like this done gives others (ME) confidence to try new things.

 

[kpke]

12/17/21

Finished wheel polishing sometime in the last week. The centers of the front wheels have been cleaned up using a stainless steel wire brush. Next clean the gold part of the wheels in preparation for paint. Then tape the polished areas and paint. Weather has turned wet and cold. Very unfavorable for painting.

12/24/21

Last week I sanded and polished up the fork lowers.

I began the final assembly of the fork legs. When I got to making my initial setting on the fork emulators just prior to installing them,I noticed a gap on one of them.

I thought they were a press fit so I did this and pressed it together in the vice to get rid of the gap.

Now look closely where the deep socket was pressing and you’ll see that I found the weak link and damaged the part. Whoopsie.

I sent an email to Mikes XS with photos explaining the situation. They responded on the Monday after Christmas weekend with the right answer. They are sending a replacement right away.

As a bit of a side note I was showing and explaining to my son what I did to screw up the part. Immediately I found that the parts are not pressed together, they are threaded together so could have just screwed it down.

12/30/21

Mikes XS sent replacement emulators. I only needed one, they sent two. Good on them for helping me out quickly. I set them at 1.5 turns. These emulators add about ¾ inch height as they sit on the cartridge and then the fork spring sits on the emulator. Once I get the forks assembled and installed on the bike will there be any fork sag all?

 

[kpke]

1/3/22

Would you like to see what is inside one of these emulators?

Both of the forks are now assembled and ready to install onto the motorcycle.

1/8/22

I installed new swingarm bearings, assembled the swingarm and installed it onto the frame.

Next installed the new YSS shock absorber after adjusting the height adjustment to equal the stock shock.

Then hooked up all of the swingarm linkage.

Everything went together quite well especially considering the powder coated frame. There was a teeny bit of overspray where the dog bones insert into the swingarm. About 30 seconds with a file took care of that.

 

[augustiron]

Shiny old parts done right make my pants tight.

 

[Lonster]

Mikes XS sent replacement emulators. I only needed one, they sent two. Good on them for helping me out quickly. I set them at 1.5 turns. These emulators add about ¾ inch height as they sit on the cartridge and then the fork spring sits on the emulator. Once I get the forks assembled and installed on the bike will there be any fork sag all?

I think so. When I had Lance Gamma rebuild my original forks with the emulators, there was sag to be set. Adding the emulators made a nice difference/upgrade to those mid 80's forks.
Thanks for the updates. Keep 'em coming!

 

[kpke]

Thanks for the comments guys.

I haven’t been doing a very good job updating my storybook so I am probably forgetting a few things.

1/9/22

Today I installed the triple clamps. Then installed the rebuilt forks. There was a little bit of “fixing” required on some of the powder coated components. Temporarily installed some old wheels so it would be a roller.

1/16/22

I have been grabbing components, bolts, screws and nuts, cleaning them and installing lots of miscellaneous parts.

Side stand/new spring, center stand/new spring, PV servo with new cables, tail light assembly, bodywork grommets and other rubber things, oil tank, coolant overflow tank, CDI/regulator assembly, spot faced the PC for coil ground, installed coil, removed PC on handlebar clamps, tail light assembly, etc.

Hmmm. It looks like I have not been taking many photographs. So you will have to take my word for it. But lots of videos that I post on my YouTube channel.

 

[Frame Maker]

... There was a little bit of “fixing” required on some of the powder coated components.

I hope you aren't having the same issue that I had from the same vendor... flaking coating.

Otherwise the bike looks amazing! No detail has gone untouched! You are a very patient man.

 

[kpke]

None whatsoever.

Powder coat is such a wonderful thing (when done correct).

Thank you for the compliment.

 

[kpke]

1/17/22

Cleaned and assembled foot pegs using new Yambits rubber parts. The rubber parts worked quite well after cleaning off the mold release and I had to put a little bend on the tips of the passenger rubbers. They had a little gap between the rubber and the bracket at the ends. This was an easy fix.

Installed exhaust bungs onto powder coated footrest brackets. Assembled foot pegs onto foot rest brackets.

Disassembled shifter assembly, cleaned, polished, installed Honda shifter rubber (I had it in stock). Installed onto the bike assembled footrest brackets with shifter assembly on the left and brake pedal/MC/fluid reservoir on the right.

1/21/22

The gauge assembly cover for this bike is broken internally. The faceplate and lenses look quite nice but the moulded standoffs on the backside are broken.

So I pulled this one out of my spares inventory.

It is far from perfect but at first glance it appears it will clean up nice and the lenses will polish out. There are no cracks and all of the standoffs are in one piece on the back.

I started with a soap and water wash.

Then spent considerable time starting with wax, then using some very weak Meguiar’s rubbing compound. They cleaned up a bit and were shiny but there is what appears to me to be a hard water staining and/or etching on the two large lenses. I tried cleaning them off with denatured alcohol but this did not help.

Next I tried some Meguiar’s 105 ultra cut compound. This helped a bit but I could still see the etch marks. Running my fingernail across them I could feel the unevenness.

So this has turned from a cleanup and polish to a project like so many things.

I pulled out another spare that had cracked lenses and did some experimenting. Below is the process I ended up with.

Next I tried 3000 grit sandpaper on one of the lenses and this helped to even out the uneven area but made something else become apparent. These plastic lenses have a coating on them and this is what was etched away in some areas. I had a feeling about this. After sanding with 3000 grit over one of the bad areas I was able to polish it up quite nicely. But now the rest of the clear coating needs to come off to even it out. So I went to 2000 grit sandpaper to remove the clear coating. Then sanded with 3000 grit sandpaper. Then hand polished with the McGuire’s 105, over and over and over again. Sore fingers. Then hand polished with Meguiar’s 205 ultra finishing polish. Then hand polished with wax.

The end result was quite amazing, albeit after a tremendous amount of labor. The two large lenses in this photo have been through that whole process. The small one did not require it.

But now these lenses are no longer protected by a clear coating so I will have to be ultra-careful not to get gasoline on them and they will need to be cleaned very carefully so as not to scratch them.

 

[kpke]

1/23/22

After spending hours and hours bringing the lenses back on that spare gauge assembly cover, I decided I would try to repair the broken and cracked standoffs on the original one. I filled in the holes in the standoffs as best I could with epoxy and then stuffed toothpicks into the holes. Then built up the epoxy where the plastic had broken off.

1/24/22

After measuring the height of the built up epoxy on the standoffs, only one of them was tall enough to work with. I use this as a first article to see if my little experiment would work. I broke off the toothpick, center punched the wood toothpick piece in the hole, and then drilled a pilot hole into the wood toothpick. Next is drilling to 7/64” for tapping M4 machine threads into the standoff. Turning the tap gently by hand didn’t feel very good so I made a lead-in using a ⅛ inch drill bit. I was then able to tap the M4 threads into the standoff. It seemed to work quite nicely.

Next I had to mix up another batch of epoxy to build up the other three standoffs a little taller. Before I did that I drilled through the toothpicks that I had broken off (and shouldn’t have) so that I could stuff new toothpicks into the holes.

Then spent a little bit of time with a dremel tool grinding the epoxy down to near the correct height. Then used a small hand file to get them to the correct height.

Next I had to grind the excess epoxy off of the sides of the standoffs because the base of the standoffs need to fit into a recessed area into the mating part. Then use an awl to make a center punch mark in the wood toothpicks, drill a pilot hole, drill to 7/64 inch, and then drill the ⅛ inch lead in. Then gently tap the M4 threads into the standoffs hoping like hell I don’t hear any cracking noises. Success.

I’m still not quite done with this thing. I have done a successful test assembly as you can see here, so it appears that the threaded epoxy is going to work. The speedo and tachometer faces are better on the one you see in this photo. However, the needles are a bit faded. I tried to pull the needles off so that I could replace them with the brighter ones from the original gauges but it seemed like they were going to break. In this photo I need to swap in the temperature gauge from the original set (this one has some white on the face), but it will have a brighter needle. Probably nobody would ever notice except me.

 

[kpke]

2/1/22

Sometime recently I built up some repop Yambits turn signal assemblies.

 

[Frame Maker]

The lenses look amazing! I could never do that. Also clever what you did there with the epoxy. In the future, I know a guy who knows a guy who could machine those posts in ABS plastic. Maybe even put a step so the new post fits over the stub of the old post. Then simply glue with ABS cement.

In other news, some folks on the FB RZ forum were chatting about a new YouTube channel... something called Ken's Garagearty

 

[kpke]

Thanks Julian!

Yeah, I was amazed I was able to get those lenses so clear on that first part I worked on.

Next time I have to remember my friend with all of the fancy machines that can make fancy parts. I'm sure that would've worked better than my epoxy experiment. But so far so good.

Ken's Garage huh? I'll have to check that out. I wonder what he does over there?

 

[Lonster]

Coming along nicely. Thanks for sharing.

 

[kpke]

3/5/22

Once again I haven’t been keeping up on my storybook again. Here are some recent highlights.


Wheel painting.

I spent a loooooooong time taping off the polished areas of these wheels. Then spent a looooooong time trimming the tape.

It was a beautiful springlike winter day so perfect for painting. Finishing up the taping took forever so the painting task didn’t begin until after lunch. The wheels were primed and then the Duplicolor gold wheel paint part #HWP111 was put on in several light coats as per the recommendation of the Duplicolor tech rep I spoke to.

That paint comes in a whopping 12 ounce can which I purchased one of. This is after three light coats, the last one being extremely light.

The wheels looked beautiful but I decided to make a run for another can of paint. I’ve come this far on these things, let’s add a little bit more paint. Hoping AutoZone would have this paint since they are closer but they didn’t. Next up O’Reillys and back home with another 12 ounce can of gold wheel paint. I used about half of the second can.

The end result was quite nice.

 

[kpke]

Finish up the gauge pod assembly.

R&R the good/bright gauge needles from the original tachometer and speedometer gauges, which the faces had some blemishes, and put them on some spare gauges, which have near-perfect faces, but had somewhat faded needles. A tricky operation the first time you do it. I had helpful directions from my friend Paul. Thank you Paul.

This is the original tachometer with the brighter needle.

This is the replacement tachometer after the needle was replaced.

All gauges now reassembled.

The good set to be installed into the pod.

The reassembled pod using the nice gauges, the epoxy reworked top panel, and a really nice back panel from spares inventory.

But there is something horribly wrong. This motorcycle will be effectively brand-new after it is reassembled. So let’s remove that speedometer and see about resetting the odometer to 0.

Never done this before like many other things I do. So for this operation I received expert very hellpful directions from Canadian friend John. Thank you John.

That’s better.

 

[kpke]

Next up remove the internal tank flap so that this tank (and a couple others) can be handed off to a PDR person. I have removed the tank flap before freehand cutting the thing out with a cutting bit in a now dead Roto Zip tool. This time was Julian’s method using a cutting wheel under the lip to cut through the whole assembly and remove it. He mentioned that you end up with a big chunk of metal that has to be squashed to remove it out of the tank after it falls in. For this project I decided to practice on a possible unrecoverable fuel tank.

The workstation.

First I put a slice in the flap so that it will end up in two pieces hopefully making it easier to remove.

I had purchased some 1.5 inch Dremel EZ Lock metal cutting wheels for my imitation dremel tool.This worked quite well although a more powerful tool would’ve been nice. Mine bogged down.

On to the good fuel tank. Success!

Hopefully this weekend a harness repair.

And do a squish measurement and begin disassembly of this thing.

 

[Lonster]

Keeping the oil pump, I see.