NEW GUY GETTING AN RZ500 RUNNING AFTER SITTING FOR 10 YEARS

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teamvisegrip
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NEW GUY GETTING AN RZ500 RUNNING AFTER SITTING FOR 10 YEARS

#1 Post by teamvisegrip » Mon Sep 14, 2015 10:25 am

Hello All:

As you can see by the header I am new to this forum and I am resurrecting a 1984 RZ500. I am doing this for a friend. I usually do not repair others bikes but he is a nice guy and he said he would pay me to do my detail cleaning and get the bike back on the road. Foolishly I agreed. I prefer to repair the older bikes with no CDIs and items that you can trouble shoot with ease, hate the new automation you cannot fix. I also do this in my spare time when I am off the ship on vacation so it take some time for me to work through a bike.

A little history of me would be good I guess. I live in Superior WI. I love motorcycles and have 7 at this time. I tend to do one bike a summer vacation and if I like it I keep it if I do not I sell it and make a very small profit. Here is my list of current bikes:

1967 Suzuki T-20 street racer mod: I have spent a lot of time on this bike and with the help of some very talented people have almost doubled the HP of the engine. I blew it up twice getting it there. It is a ball to ride but hard to keep in the narrow power band.

1968 Honda CL90: This was my summer project and is a fun little bike. I will sell it though.

1970 Honda CL100: This is a very good condition original bike and is a copy of the first bike I had. Keeper Bike!

1971 CZ 175 Trail: I repaired this bike two years ago and it is an absolute ball to play with. As a 2-stroke it has the low end power of a 4-stroke.

1974 Kawasaki H2 Denco 120KC Tracy Body: This will be my last full on mod project. I have a lot done on it but it has stalled due to funds after buying a new house. I am pulling out all the stops on this one.

1986 Honda VFR 750: I bought this new and it still looks new.

1995 Kawasaki 250 Ninja: This is my wife's bike and it too still looks new.

So now that I am done with the introduction on to my problems. After a lot of work getting the bike ready to start I was relieved that it started right up and ran well. I finished installing the body and went for the first ride. It kept shutting off. All electrical items including the servo motor for the exhaust would work but it was like the key was pulled. It would restart and run well and shut off again. I figured some of the stalls were just me getting used to the bike and I was right. As I got used to it I was able to keep her going well till it just shut down completely and I had to push it home. After sitting for a week I tried to start it and it started right up and ran well. But I wanted to find the shut down problem. I cleaned the Kill Switch, verified the Ignition Switch and disconnected the Side Stand Safety System. After doing this I again tried to start it and to my surprise it started right up and ran very well. So much fun. Good power and the sound from the after market pipes was amazing. I figured I had found the problem and headed home to get it ready for delivery. But just as I pulled into the street I live on it again shut down completely. All items would work but no spark.

I went to work on the bike and checked everything. I found the coils and wires to be in rough shape so cleaned all connections and tried again. Nothing. I have asked for help on another site and was told it is a typical CDI issue. So I spoke with the owner and he agreed to replace it and the coils to be sure that it will be reliable. I did do all the checks in the book for the other items and these checked out good.

If any of you have any advice for me I would be interested to hear it.

If any are interested to see my bikes here is a link to my Photo Bucket Album
http://s1220.photobucket.com/user/teamv ... t=6&page=1" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Mark

silverstrom
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Re: NEW GUY GETTING AN RZ500 RUNNING AFTER SITTING FOR 10 YE

#2 Post by silverstrom » Mon Sep 14, 2015 6:17 pm

It does sounds like a typical CDI failure. A cold solder joint. Works fine until it heats up and the circuit opens, then it shuts down. Once it cools contact is made again and it will start and run, but just until it heats up again and opens the circuit and dies.

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2smoke
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Re: NEW GUY GETTING AN RZ500 RUNNING AFTER SITTING FOR 10 YE

#3 Post by 2smoke » Mon Sep 14, 2015 7:45 pm

I remember reading an old post on here with a guy that had the same type of problem. He fixed it. It was the ignition switch. Sometimes it worked and sometimes it quit. If you don't have a spare maybe you could bypass it to test it?
I hope you reinstalled the kickstand switch. I know someone who died in a terrible way by leaving their sidestand down.
Colin

teamvisegrip
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Joined: Fri Sep 11, 2015 9:12 pm

Re: NEW GUY GETTING AN RZ500 RUNNING AFTER SITTING FOR 10 YE

#4 Post by teamvisegrip » Mon Sep 14, 2015 8:23 pm

I just disconnected the Side Stand Safety System to eliminate it from being an issue. I did very thoroughly test the Ignition Switch to eliminate it too. This project has been in my garage for a very long time. Partly because it has been a very large job to clean and check out the bike and partly because I do not get much time to work on it with so many new house projects.

I appreciate the posts and help though! Keep them coming and I will keep eliminating the issues till the parts get here.

I just need to get it done so I can get back to the Kawasaki H2 project.

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