Finally I’ve bought a 500...

[cainpole]

I bought a set of the TKRJ pistons and the price is for all 4 pistons. 2 front and 2 rear. You can email the company for clarification if need be.

[ns86]

Set of 4 TKRJ RZV500 Full Piston Kit $415.00 USD plus Shipping.

[silverstrom]

Is buying direct from Japan the only option Dan? Not that it is a concern, just curious.

[ns86]

That's the only place I have seen the RZV500 Set available aside from other Japanese sites. Says Limited Sale? Reasonable price though for a good quality product.

[TwoStrokeNut]

Set of 4 TKRJ RZV500 Full Piston Kit $415.00 USD plus Shipping.

I don't intend to ride my bike enough to need a new set, but at least that sounds like a pretty reasonable price should the time ever come.

[JonW]

It is a reasonable price, but if you can source the same pistons in TZR form then you can find them cheaper. Yambits list their TZR TKRJ piston kist for just under £38 each, thats $50 a piston, $200 a set of 4 plus shipping...

[JonW]

Unsure about what to do with my rebore Ive decided to spend some time on my seat and put the decision off LOL!

I put on a new cover from Dis-covers in the UK as they usually do a decent version Ive found with other bikes. With some stretching and some sunny days, Im 99% happy with it, the bit round the front with the stitching isnt as perfect as Id have liked. Those who know me will attest, I am picky tho

When fitting the newly plated parts back on the underside I had two questions about the springs on both the lock and the latch.

1, The lock I think has been apart before and I wonder if the locksmith who did the key-alike to the ignition didnt get this right. To me, it looks very strange to have this spring moving round, can this be right?



2, On the latch in my old photos the spring sat in a different position and was just loose - same lock smith perhaps, sigh. Why do the job if you arent going to make an effort? sigh...

So... in order to see if i could get it to actually do something i rotated it and now have one end around the latch and one against the plate. Its does have tension now when i move the latch, but is this now in the correct position?

[jackson.40]

Shame you didn't do this while you were doing your seat.....................

http://www.rzrd500.com/500phpBB3/viewto ... EAT#p75426

Here are some photos of one of my nos seats, this is the set up you should have

[silverstrom]

1, The lock I think has been apart before and I wonder if the locksmith who did the key-alike to the ignition didnt get this right. To me, it looks very strange to have this spring moving round, can this be right?

The spring is correct Jon. Your lock is missing its cover. You can see a new one here https://www.ebay.ca/itm/OEM-CHIUSURA-SE ... wF&vxp=mtr

[JonW]

Cool, so it looks like I got the latch right bit 'o trail and error but really it can only go the one way and do anything useful

I did consider doing the studs, but I felt drilling them out was a bridge too far, they look bad in close ups compared to the rezinc'd latch parts but they actually still retain their yellow zinc coating and are not visibly rusty etc. when the seat is in the hand. When I do LC seats I always remove the plate and rezinc that, but they they usually led harder lives than my 500 did lol.

Ahh thats what that bit of metal is! I did wonder! I have the cover in the bottom of the boxes of parts and thought it was something left over from an old 70's DIN plug outer LOL! I kept it in case I could find a use for it, phew!

[JonW]

Ive been laid up with an Achilles tendon issue but the pain is finally easing and I can hobble with a touch more swagger now than last week, this meant that I did manage a few mins in the garage today to hunt for the seat lock cover in the boxes.

I found it and it cleaned up nice, looks like its stainless. It did have a dent in it, which may have been how it came to be parted from the latch even though nothing else was removed from the seat by the PO. Luckily he boxed everything that came off, else im sure this could easily have gone missing.

I managed to tease the dent out with the handle of an old toothbrush by rubbing it back and forth on a flat surface for 5mins. 2 more mins of working out how it fitted on the latch and it was back in place on the seat, which of course now looks more finished.

Thanks so much to those who replied about this, Im very grateful to you - without your input I dont know if id have worked out what that cover was or even that it was missing, well, certainly not for quite some time. With this plate fitted the lock spring is tensioned and the little extra help it gives to the latch mechanism as a whole means that its tension feels more natural now.

In other news a brand new stone guard arrived from Malaysia from an ebay seller Ive been using for Yam parts since he started ebaying a few years back now. This is not an inexpensive part as we know and he was the cheapest I could find for this part delivered to my door from someone who was trustworthy enough to supply (i did find a cheaper one online in the USA but it seemed 'too cheap' etc). I have to say that while the stone guard is made from a set of mildly complicated stampings tacked together, it's really not worth Yamaha's price of entry in my view, its not like its a critical part to riding the motorcycle really and you could fab something else with parts found during a half hour scout round the local hardware store, but hey this is the price we have to pay for originality of course. I will most definitely be adding some way of holding it to the bike, im not losing this one (and Ron's bracket - which ive now powdercoated) over some random bump. Thinking about it, I'd rather have my wallet drop out of my pocket on said bump, there is less cash in there than in these parts... lol

With all the piston discussions we've had, Im now leaning towards John's advice to 'use what you've got'. They're here, they're right, theyre OEM and I can do them now (well once Im driving again). That logic makes a lot of sense to move this project forwards.

[silverstrom]

There is a reason many bikes are missing the stone guard Jon. They fit poorly and most have simply fallen off while riding. The best thing to do with it is to put it away somewhere safe and keep it so the bike is complete, but don't install it. It's mostly useless anyway unless you like to ride the bike off-road.

[JonW]

Haha, yes good points John

[JonW]

Moving on with a few more sub assemblies while im desk bound.... firstly the switch blocks.

I'd already powder coated the bodies and the zinc parts were still really clean, even the OEM bolts were nice. So from this:



I now have these:





While I do still need to add the white paint in the sliding switch grooves I think the results speak for themselves. The plastic switches needed a good scrape and polish to get back to the colour under the crispy white oxidised ‘dead plastic’ on their surface and while the finished switch blocks are obviously not actually ‘new’ they are a vast improvement over what i started with.

One thing I’ve never liked about these aftermarket graphics is their heavy handed font, it’s like its ‘bold’, when it shouldn’t be. However these graphics are all we seem to be able to get and I do wonder why that is. If anyone knows a supplier who offers a thinner font set I would happily peel these off, please do let me know.


If anyone is interested in reading about what im doing with this one in a more condensed and rewritten form, Ive hosted the build on my website now:
http://2smoked.com/Yamaha_RZ500_-_Home.html

[JonW]

Picked up an Owners manual for the bike. not really 'needed' of course, but nice to have since mine is missing.