BARN YARD 500

[Vonzipper]

Today I started working on the RZ5 restoration project. Found the left hand carbs were stuck closed with no movement of the throttle possible. The Disassembly process has started.


Meeting the rest of the 2 smokers.













Compression test 120psi on all cylinders.






That's it for today, will continue tomorrow.

[silverstrom]

I think you're going to need more polish Geoff.

Looking forward to watching your restoration.

[rich bullock]

Looks like it could be a nice project a lot of work to do but will be worth it. You have a nice collection of bikes there, like the little DT's. Looks like you do at least have a decent work shop to carry out the works in which will help a lot, slap on some tunes put the coffee pot on and work away. One thing I found makes life a lot easier is get the bike up on a bench and on a paddock stand makes life so much easier especially if like me age is creeping upon you and bending down all the time gets hard. Anyway all the best with it and keep posting as you go.
Rich.

[jackson.40]

Great bike collection ,looking forward to more photos with this project

[2smoke]

New project, new adventure!
Don't forget to take a bunch of digital pictures, especially of the area under the gas tank for the routing of the cables and wiring harness. And the routing of the gas lines.

[Vonzipper]

Today I decided to take the carbs off to find out why the throttle was stuck, the LH rear throttle slide was completely gummed up. Here are some of today's pictures.

[Vonzipper]

After going thru the mechanical's of the 500 for the past week and not finding anything seriously wrong with the motor, I've decided to try to get it started and roadworthy for the summer, then over the winter do a full restoration. Paid a visit to my local Yamaha dealer and picked up all the base and head gaskets he had in stock. When thru the electrical system and repaired bad wiring harness to neutral and side stand switches. In the process of cleaning up engine and frame parts. Next is the brakes, both front and back brakes are inop. Here's some pics of the progress.



Before

After

[solo 2]

Nice start on what looked pretty bad, I see you took some flack on the condition of the bike, I think at that price you can't go wrong especially if it starts/runs. If I had seen it soon enough, it would be in my garage. I was supposed to shake mine out this weekend, but the weather went from nice to an inch of snow, damn Alberta. Let me know if you need any advice or help with sourcing parts as I have just gone through all of this, still am. Of course this place has been an endless source of info, saved me much money,time and heart ache but you probably already know that. Welcome to the big side.

[aaronmvrider]

keep at it...

[nokturnal]

I need to find one of those over here...

[Vonzipper]

The clean up continues, yesterday I could no longer stand to see the off white frame, so I decided to change it.



















I replaced all the carburettor and fuel line hoses.











Next, check electrical wires and connections, found green corrosion on the Igniter connectors.





Installed radiator and filled it with coolant, found a slow coolant leak coming from #4 cylinder, leaking down by the power valve and down the exhaust header. Where can it be coming from? the head gasket?

Pic Looking up from bottom of bike with #4 cyl on the left.

[2smoke]

Yes. The head gaskets are probably really corroded from sitting. I would assume the thermostat is corroded and stuck too. What number jets are in the carbs?

[bolly]

wash it off and observe then rinse again and repeat until you spot the leak....BTW lookin much better!!!!

[trappena]

Man this brings back memories! Bought an RD500 in boxes a while back and took me about a year to get it going. Dam expensive rebuild that was (new cranks, pistons, etc etc) The darndest thing was that I also had a coolant leak (real small one somewhere, could not pinpoint it) what was fixed after a couple of heat cycles and re-torqueing the head.

Cheers
trappena

[aaronmvrider]

pull it apart and do all seals rings etc now,...... and check cranks.... trust me i know....