Standard RZ - '83 no longer modified with RGV, Brembo, Zeel & other parts

[JonW]

Spent a bit of time today on two things:

1, the steering stop... its mostly made, just needs testing and welding on.

2, the headlight bracket lower mount. I bought one (its a page or two back) but thought id make lower one like SH did. I made it and it didn't look right at all to me, the headlight was too low in the triples. In the end I settled for flipping over the bracket I bought to lower the headlight and bikini fairing a little (about 3cm) and it looks fine now. I think I didnt flip the bracket before as the top edges of the OEM bracket almost lined up with the triples when I originally fitted it, so I assumed it was designed to fit like that. I actually dont mind making up some more brackets for the top edge as I will need to create a platform for the dashboard anyway...

And.... "I also worked on the tank..." I think I could reuse that line for updates most days for this past week and also the next.... hmm... it is getting there tho. What I have found when looking at a number of the early tanks is that the left side on the thinner part is often less bulbous than the right, Im thinking that while my tank is defo tweaked and pinched on the edge here, the actual shape isnt as bad as I thought. phew.

[JonW]

{grumble}...bloody bastard lumpy golf ball fuel tank...{/grumble}

[seahorse]

If its any consolation mate I got shoe box full of bog out of the "good tank" I bought of "a trusted mate" here in Perth.
I Worked on it for two weeks, pulled the dents as best I could, welded the holes that I could see, bogged it, sanded it, and bogged and sanded again.
High body primed it and sanded it again, the I spent 1/2 a day lining it.
A week later I bought the best tank of my life "one small dent and no apparent pin holes", from a bloke around the corner who had it in his shed for years.
If only I had a crystal ball.
And to add a bit of humour, I thougt id go over the bog stock 250 engine today, as the PO said he had recently rebuilt the top end, you know, clean the carbs check the compression, oil pump settings/operation etc.
Turns out the thing has cold seazed by the looks of the pistons, left pipe wasn't smoking at all on start up, checked the oil pump and she was spinning, not pumping. I replaced the pump with one of a few I have on the shelf, she is now getting oil.

Fortunately I will eventually put a 350 top on her as I have one on the shelf, I also have three sets of 250 barrels and a set of 250 pistons somewhere. I did want to just spin around with the 250 engine for a while to see how she goes without any hassells, how wrong I was.

[JonW]

Yeah the joys of RZ ownership indeed... never believe any seller's claims and keep looking n looking for parts always... tho i have to say this tank will be ok when done, its just taking time as anyone know and SH has experienced, will take a long time to fix after its had a long life :/

[JonW]

Pistons arrived for this motor today... another item ticked off the list...

I continue to play with the tank in my spare time...

[JonW]

Pulled the 83 out of the shed today as it was in the way of some other tasks. I whacked the part done tank on the top to see what it looked like. what do you think?





And the tank....which needs many more days of work...





The loom arrived today.... ever forwards!

[hondaror]

Looking very good Jon!

[JonW]

Thanks mate! Its really just a mock up though, the rear suspension doesnt have any bearing collars in the swingarm pivot, the steering bearings are a mistmatch of the ones that came with the frame and some old ones removed from the used RZ triple clamp we fitted to James' 250 last month, and there are no tank rubbers. The rear light is bolted on properly tho... just so you know i'm not totally bodging ;) :D

What is interesting is that this bike rolls and steers amazingly. Sure there is no weight in it yet, but considering the wheel bearings came from a long dismantled Japanese bike and the steering bearings were old parts from other bearings its all a bit amazing. Makes you wonder why we replace everything... not that I wont keep doing that, but it does make you think.

[JonW]

One thing I didnt mention was that a couple of weeks back I visited LB and he provided me with one of his RGV conversion spacers. Perfect for my RGV triples in the RZ frame, anyone doing one of these builds needs one. Contact him if you want one I guess,

From his post in my F1 build thread:

Three spacers for rgv triple & started on the ss gear lever bolt, with some slight changes...

[JonW]

Ive realised that by swapping parts around between my builds a few of the newbies will probably be wondering where suddenly parts that are part done or completed have come from, so in the interests of some kind of continuity, I offer the original posts on stripping the tank while I keep going on filling and massaging the golf ball to get it back into shape. Enjoy. (for those who’ve seen these before, I apologise)

----
Well I've started on stripping the tank... This tank is actually one of the two I have for this (remember this was the F1 build thread) and the 31k. Neither are very good.... but few tanks are these days. The original tank for this bike needs to be dipped and repaired as it has a bit of rust but mostly cos it has something akin to resin as a liner. This one came from an old racer who said it 'held fuel ok', hmm... it leaked like a sieve past the chemical metal repairs, when I first tried it. I welded it up and lined it to get a running bike a year or two back, but I would certainly advise anyone else to wait and line it when you’ve seen just how much damage needs repair first. You don’t want to use a hammer on a tank with a liner.

The giveaway with how much work this tank might need was the casual sanding by a PO, perhaps even the 'old racer' himself? It showed a thick layer of filler in various places, and of course the tank was tweaked as well, which I didn't notice until it was on the bike. The cracks in the paint might have been a giveaway to that but it was polished when I got it, so the dirt had yet to find its way into the hairlines... the 'slipping' paint was just a big no no and a huge red flag...

So here are the before shots... Have a guess what I find under that lack lustre - two words that used alone work well for paint related matters, but together... Well...













Underneath... As they say in literature, it’s a curates egg... I.e. “good in parts...”

There seems to be some interesting repairs on the top, look like two holes have been welded up, maybe that’s normal... er... lol. There are two sets of damage to the front sides, from the bars I would think. And... the kink in the middle on the left, from some riders' knee I would wager, and both lower ‘round’ corners have some dents, from hitting the deck for sure.

The actual repairs I did underneath were all that it needed and that was a small crack and a couple of pin holes, all of which welded up fine and were then skimmed with liquid metal prior to the liner.

Anyway, it holds fuel fine and all the repairs appear to work well, so it's back on with the filler I guess, shame as now it's lined you can't just pop the side dents or correct the center ‘twist dent’ by knocking it back down, only fill and reprofile these areas, still I have a tank that's cleaned off and its added to the pile of stuff to get painted.... well I will still clean it up a bit more, I've got this far i may as well finish! LOL!















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Obviously Im further ahead now and the reprofiling continues apace. Im trying to use a lot less filler than the DPOs, not least so it weighs less, but also as filler has some nasty habits of doing horrible things to your top coat. Fingers crossed I can use the minimal amount and get a decent finish.

[seahorse]

Yes john a shame she was lined as that dent left side front would have been an easy one to pull out
Looks good in the last mock up, and I did notice the side stand. Whats that from.
Noticed you flipped the bars for the flat look. Now push the forks through and sit em on top, youll only loose 20 mill max.
Looks exakery like mine but your wheels, forks and triple tree nut look much cleaner. That pretty much leaves the frame the same.
Ill have to think about ordering a crank and some pistons as i've pretty much completed my mock up.
Still no wiser on the paint. I wish I had a program I could bring the bike up on and change the colours and textures.

[L.B]

Think you've done pretty good work on that tank for what it was.
Thanks for the community annonoucement there Jon lol r.e:fork spacer.My phones been ringing off the hook.
Are those clip on's upside down?Who gives a toss,they look like a better position anyways.
Got another set here for you too lol.

[seahorse]

Yes LB the clip on swapped left to right then flipped over leaves a pretty good upright riding position for the gentleman rider around town. (im pretty sure that is how John has the bars oriented at the moment)
At least that's what I did with the Aprillia RS 250 that I had, and it worked perfectly.
When I mocked up the LC 421 with Aprillia front end I originally mocked it up that way as well, but ended up going for standard LC bars.
I hope I haven't upset you bloke.
PS nice work on the ss gear leaver stub as they are always chewed out on the old bikes that combined with flogged out linkages equals sloppy gear changes.

[JonW]

Yes john a shame she was lined as that dent left side front would have been an easy one to pull out
Looks good in the last mock up, and I did notice the side stand. Whats that from.
Noticed you flipped the bars for the flat look. Now push the forks through and sit em on top, youll only loose 20 mill max.
Looks exakery like mine but your wheels, forks and triple tree nut look much cleaner. That pretty much leaves the frame the same.
Ill have to think about ordering a crank and some pistons as i've pretty much completed my mock up.
Still no wiser on the paint. I wish I had a program I could bring the bike up on and change the colours and textures.

Yeah I agree, its not always easy to follow my own advice ('Always remove paint and remove dents before you line a tank'), but I guess that's what makes us human, grr. I could have pushed out and improved around 80% of the dents on this one for sure, sigh... ahh well it is what it is... I wanted a tank that worked for my F1 and this was the one I did so i could make it run and drive to test it, it did the job. :)

Thanks for the kind words, Its a very basic mock up really. Hardly any real work to bolt on the suspension kit of parts and a small mod to for the stand... its off a Triumph T595, I have the same one on my LC421. Nice alloy unit.

Yep bars were flipped, I did think about putting them on top, and may still do that, just not 100% sure if I like them or not yet. This is meant to be a racy looking bike, but it has to be rideable for those of us with aging bones LOL!

Yeah, agreed. Ive been hunting down plenty of pics off the net to help and so far im more confused on paint than ever :/

[JonW]

Think you've done pretty good work on that tank for what it was.
Thanks for the community annonoucement there Jon lol r.e:fork spacer.My phones been ringing off the hook.
Are those clip on's upside down?Who gives a toss,they look like a better position anyways.
Got another set here for you too lol.

Thanks mate! Yeah the thing was a golf ball and Ive still a bit of a way to go, the primer and low res pics makes it look more completed than it really is of course. but im getting there :)

Haha, well... I try to help, people need this sort of stuff and its always better to give money to people you like than some faceless engineering business. :)

Yep, upside down... as designed. in full on RGV mode I had my elbows on the engine cases, not really my style. Even in my 30s riding an R6 for any distance killed me, so im not getting any more supple as I get older LOL. At least I can admit it I guess :)

Another set would be always useful, what I really need is an alloy set. Ive realised that my clever Domino throttle tube has an internal bearing for MX style bars. Or i could get a spacer made I guess... hmm... I wonder who I know who could do that???