My RD LC Athena 421 Hybrid with RGV suspenders

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JonW
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Re: My RD LC Athena 421 Hybrid with RGV suspenders

#346 Post by JonW » Thu Sep 27, 2018 7:59 pm

Here you go Mark, hope this info helps.

Ok... Didnt have a pic of the left and its now blown apart, but really it had nothing on it at all, just a bolt through from the back to hold on the footpeg which has the gearchange captive on it's shaft, just flops about when not connected. I dont think anyone would bolt that on wrong so not a hassle I'd think.

The right looks like this (bear in mind Ive customised my brake part to push the rear master, not pull the rod).

Image

Image

Pretty simple and agricultural as expected from good old Raask :)
80 XT500 Supermoto!
81 RD350LC Resto
82 RD421LC Hybrid
82 RD350LC decapitation project
82 RD250LC JDM '251LC' YPVS
83 RZ350 Resto
84 RZ500 Resto
85 RZ350 F1 Resto
86 RZ350 F2 Resto
86 RZ350 F2 Hybrid

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two-stroke-brit
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Re: My RD LC Athena 421 Hybrid with RGV suspenders

#347 Post by two-stroke-brit » Fri Sep 28, 2018 8:02 am

Thanks Jon,
mine must be an early pair as i think the foot peg bolt is not hinged and it looks like the older AC 350 footpeg rubbers .
will check tonite.
also the PO had either epoxied or welded a stop to stop the bolt from rotating .
i see some upgrade/modding in its future
cheers mark
350LC,Athena 392 big bore,stock porting,swiss cheese air box,stock reeds,spec11 pipes.(now TSA big bore pipes)
She might not be pretty but she will always be a fun ride


1982 YAMA RD350LC
98KDX 220R
1967 TRIUMPH TIGER
2001 TRIUMPH TT600

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Re: My RD LC Athena 421 Hybrid with RGV suspenders

#348 Post by JonW » Fri Sep 28, 2018 9:28 am

No worries Mark, let me know if you need anything more, its stripped apart now but i can photo the parts as needed.

I did see a broken pair of the RZ Raasks on US ebay this week, might net you some of these footpegs if you want some?

I'm still searching for a set of the rear pegs like the ones on these for my 83. Seem to be harder to find than ever now :(
80 XT500 Supermoto!
81 RD350LC Resto
82 RD421LC Hybrid
82 RD350LC decapitation project
82 RD250LC JDM '251LC' YPVS
83 RZ350 Resto
84 RZ500 Resto
85 RZ350 F1 Resto
86 RZ350 F2 Resto
86 RZ350 F2 Hybrid

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two-stroke-brit
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Re: My RD LC Athena 421 Hybrid with RGV suspenders

#349 Post by two-stroke-brit » Fri Sep 28, 2018 12:35 pm

JonW wrote:No worries Mark, let me know if you need anything more, its stripped apart now but i can photo the parts as needed.

I did see a broken pair of the RZ Raasks on US ebay this week, might net you some of these footpegs if you want some?

I'm still searching for a set of the rear pegs like the ones on these for my 83. Seem to be harder to find than ever now :(
Many Thanks buddy
mark
350LC,Athena 392 big bore,stock porting,swiss cheese air box,stock reeds,spec11 pipes.(now TSA big bore pipes)
She might not be pretty but she will always be a fun ride


1982 YAMA RD350LC
98KDX 220R
1967 TRIUMPH TIGER
2001 TRIUMPH TT600

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JonW
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Re: My RD LC Athena 421 Hybrid with RGV suspenders

#350 Post by JonW » Mon Oct 15, 2018 8:07 pm

As I said this (re)build is getting some upgrades from the original build, which is getting on for 8 or so years ago now I've just realised! While the work that was done was fine, it lacked some of the attention to detail that I (and others) now lavish on builds of this type. I can say with impunity that over the years the standard of all builds Ive seen has been raised as all builders skills have rocketed. I’ve also been lucky in that not only has my skill set improved and widened, but I’ve also been lucky enough to make some great friends who also have a bunch of skills and so far have been keen to help me improve my builds. I’m very appreciative of the help and teaching I'e received.

So, what’s new?

Radiator - The rad wasn’t level. It was close, maybe only a few degrees out, but it was noticeable to me. I needed to work on the bracket once I had the bike dead level. I cut and rewelded it and also added some strengtheners to ensure it would remain solid. This will be powdercoated instead of the paint I originally used.

Next up was the rad itself. I’d blanked off the bypass on the head but decided I should use it. I made up a spigot on the lathe and had it welded in. I also needed to fit the temp sender for the auto fan controller and I made up a bung and cut a 1/8 NPT thread and had that welded in as well. Its getting crowded now on the rad tanks lol!

Image

I'm still undecided if the rad will stay alloy or be painted... Hmm..


Top triple -The top triple was always going to be reworked. This was blasted and painted originally and now I have the skills and ability to powdercoat it. But I wanted to sort out two other things as well and improve them:

Ignition switch - The LC/RZ ignition switch does not fit the RGV top triples. It;s close, but its not quite right. Long story short, to do this properly you need to file the holes oval in the switch and also make up some little spacers. Like so:

Image


Dash location - The dash was previously located on some R6 shock mounts I cut down and used as the washers under the bar clamps with some nuts welded onto them. It worked and was strong enough but not really good enough for V2.0 of this build. I turned up some parts to ape the OEM LC top triple locators so I could use the OEM dash mounting rubbers and sleeves. This gives the correct damping the clocks really need.

Image

These now need to be tidied up a little and then welded to the triple, so I need to make up a jig to hold them in the right place for that to happen.

The whole top triple and the ignition spacers will be powdercoated satin black.
80 XT500 Supermoto!
81 RD350LC Resto
82 RD421LC Hybrid
82 RD350LC decapitation project
82 RD250LC JDM '251LC' YPVS
83 RZ350 Resto
84 RZ500 Resto
85 RZ350 F1 Resto
86 RZ350 F2 Resto
86 RZ350 F2 Hybrid

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Re: My RD LC Athena 421 Hybrid with RGV suspenders

#351 Post by JonW » Fri Dec 07, 2018 1:00 am

The top triple is now all welded, powdercoated and fitted to the bike and the forks and front wheel / brakes are on, plus a host of other things have been done as well but not much that I felt worthy of mention.

I did buy new filters for this bike... it wasn’t that I was unhappy as such with the K&Ns, more that I didn’t like how I had to dent them to work with the frame, and they still rested on the spars. This meant the rubbed on the frame as they are quite solid, but they are also tapered so quite ‘small’ in volume and plenty of people suggest that they are hard to tune cos of the hard end plates. So I bought a set of Uni filters. They are nice and slim but as theyre not tapered they do hit the 2T tank, not a lot of room in an LC lol!

Next job will be the dash, a full overhaul.
80 XT500 Supermoto!
81 RD350LC Resto
82 RD421LC Hybrid
82 RD350LC decapitation project
82 RD250LC JDM '251LC' YPVS
83 RZ350 Resto
84 RZ500 Resto
85 RZ350 F1 Resto
86 RZ350 F2 Resto
86 RZ350 F2 Hybrid

Like Watches? www.PloProf.com & www.DeskDivers.com

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JonW
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Re: My RD LC Athena 421 Hybrid with RGV suspenders

#352 Post by JonW » Fri Dec 07, 2018 8:32 am

Hmm.... Not many comments on what Ive said here recently, ie none, is anyone still reading this I wonder?

For some time I’ve wanted a digital speedo on this bike, not least because I need an easy to read speedo as I seem to live in ‘cop central’ with a bunch of speed changes and school zones, but also ‘cos the RGV speedo cable is pretty tight across the 6 pots and worst of all for a speedometer; the rolling radius of my RGV front wheel will not match the old LC parts so the reading would be out anyway. The problem I had solutioning this was twofold; it had to fit in the OEM LC clock cases as this bike needs to keep the look of an LC and also it had to get its speed reading from somewhere that wasn’t the front wheel.

Luckily the modern world came to my rescue when a forumer posted a pic of a unit he had found for his bike. It had a nice big LCD display and was simply powered by 12v and was backlit. Being GPS it picked its speed input up from a GPS antenna so that solved one issue. It was designed for boats so would be able to repel rain and be used to being bumped around in use. Ok, it wasn’t quite the size needed as the LC clocks are massive by today’s standards at 100mm, but was close enough at 85mm to slide into the cases and not look too out of place and I thought it worked well enough visually, although said forumer had bought a white faced unit to match his custom white tacho. I wanted black and after a good search ebay proved the cheapest and provided me this kit...

Image

So, to integrate it into the existing speedo side of the cluster...On the face of it this is reasonably easy. You could just wedge it in using the ‘legs’ (studs) from the new unit which although they are M4 they are almost the right length and spacing of the original tacho's M5 versions but yeah being me I didn’t do that as the spacing and the size isn’t quite right so I cut them off and while I could have fitted new studs the correct size and spacing to the new speedo, I decided to fit the whole gauge into an old LC speedo housing as I had a spare one. This allowed me to use the OEM fixings to hold the unit to the clock top cover, allowing the dash to be held together in the way Yamaha intended as well as giving me back the correct sized and spaced fixings for the bracket/back cover. Of course, I needed to relieve some areas of the speedo housing to allow the electric connector (where the back light used to be) and the GPS antenna to reach the unit and the GPS speedo’s single button – even though it should not be needed once the unit is setup to kms (it also does SOG, miles, nautical miles etc).


At the same time I wanted to sort out the tacho as well. The temp gauge on my unit didn’t work and with this bike being so far from OEM I wanted something with a digital readout. I had setup the temp on the EGT gauges but I’ve decided not to use them in v2.0 of this bike. It’s a long story but there is a lot of wiring on this one now, but also drilling and messing with the ceramic coated pipes seemed ‘excessive’. So I’ve decided to go back to the small blue LED Koso gauge, but have integrated it into the tacho. These are a great small unit and this one worked well when I had it installed before on the bars, plus, well, I have it. Ok, let’s address the elephant in the room; yes, it might well have been better with a red display to match the backlight perhaps, but I already had this one here and know it works, but yes I do know that Koso sell a red one, and I actually think the blue looks good now its done.

Image

Ok, I should say, this is not an easy integration. As delivered the Koso is too large for simple integration into the tacho unit. I’d previously seen someone glue one into the tacho before (I expect with some cutting of the OEM tacho housing) but I wanted a total install, ie like it was built that way. This meant breaking apart the housing and pulling the electrics out and making the parts fit in a new smaller housing. In the grinding to fit even the circuit board didn’t escape that mod! I did this to fit the curve of the OEM tacho housing. These mods also included making the hole in the dial larger to accommodate the digits and the creating of a one-off smoked acrylic screen. Fiddly work and a good time to dust off those old modelmaking skills lol.

The screen hole was gently filed out to he right size and then smoked acrylic was cut larger than the hole and the new screen was recessed to fit in the space to look more modern and like it came like that from the manufacturer. This was glued to the dial using the filed flange at the back. (protecting paper still fitted in these pics)

Image

Image

The temp units innards were fitted in their new shaped case made from plastic off cuts and then cleaned up on a linisher, this pic is at an early stage of that process.

Image

That was in turn also glued to the dial, sealed and reinforced so vibration won’t dislodge it and moisture cannot enter.

Image

Then the fixing glue (Wurth replast) and the plastic of the new temp gauge case was all ground back to allow the dial to be centralised as it should be and then what was left exposed was painted flat black so if you do glimpse it through glass it doesn’t draw the eye as that’s the same finish as the dial. It was quite a bit neater when done than in the pic.

And of course, I want this bike to be right, so I'm not skimping on the good parts so I did all this to one of Kateannwells new LC tacho dials and fitted a brand new yuni parts XT500 (same as LC) needle as well. While it was all apart I fully cleaned and lubed the tacho mech, which is much simpler when you take away the temp unit, plus I needed to modify it a little to slide past the temp unit, which is now part of the dial of course. A good clean of the glass, rubber and plastic instrument parts and a repainted bezel completed the transformation which was then all crimped back together. This unit was really grubby actually, it really did need a refurb.

Ok, yes... Simple steps, but very very time consuming.

I felt the wiring could be nice and simple for these and to be honest it all came together elegantly, utilising a single OEM connector and making use of only 3 wires for the two instruments and their lighting; Switched 12v, ground and backlight feeds from the OEM tacho connection. I did this by adding an OEM style backlight from my stock of OEM connectors cut from old looms. The same source also gave me the correct connector to fit into the original tacho feed in the headlight bowl, using its temp gauge +/- and the tacho backlight feeds. Once wired up I made this into a proper loom by taping it up and its become a very neat solution to power all this, much less bulky than the OEM stuff as it’s one less connector now that the speedo mini loom isn’t connected, after all I was losing the distance portion of the auto cancel indicators anyway with the GPS speedo.

Image

Red LED installed in the tacho to match the GPS's fixed red LED illumination.

Image

(The random speeds shown on the GPS speedo are actually 'seconds', its counting up the time since it lost its GPS connection as I didn't have the antenna connected)

So there you have it, everything back in the OEM clock case and working using the simplified electrics. I only need to solution where to put the GPS antenna now... Oh and fit the RGV speedo drive delete spacer a mate is making for me :)

That reminds me, I should add here that a lot of this work couldn’t have been done without the help of my friends and in particular the forumer who sent me the needle rest when I dropped mine (it was never seen again, even tho I spent well over and hour looking on two seperate occasions), the plastics place who gave me an offcut of smoked acrylic and my mate Howard who hooked me up with my fave tool this year, a Wurth replast gun. I will admit that while I am a huge fan of Wurth’s replast product (as expect anyone reasing my posts knows) I really struggled with the cheap ‘dental’ gun I got off ebay and this proper unit not only fixes that problem, but makes it a joy to use. I’m now looking for what plastic part needs fixing next lol

Image
80 XT500 Supermoto!
81 RD350LC Resto
82 RD421LC Hybrid
82 RD350LC decapitation project
82 RD250LC JDM '251LC' YPVS
83 RZ350 Resto
84 RZ500 Resto
85 RZ350 F1 Resto
86 RZ350 F2 Resto
86 RZ350 F2 Hybrid

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Re: My RD LC Athena 421 Hybrid with RGV suspenders

#353 Post by Jessy » Fri Dec 07, 2018 9:08 am

Nice job Jon, looks smart.
Can’t believe it’s been on the go for 7 years or so, bet you can’t wait to give it a good thrashing.
Jess

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Re: My RD LC Athena 421 Hybrid with RGV suspenders

#354 Post by nokturnal » Fri Dec 07, 2018 10:18 am

those are some inspiring clocks there Jon...

Would hate to think the $ you have into this bike. I think we need a current full side shot of it. :smt033
:smt017

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Re: My RD LC Athena 421 Hybrid with RGV suspenders

#355 Post by two-stroke-brit » Fri Dec 07, 2018 3:19 pm

Nice work as usual ,
not a fan of the red illumination but "to each their own".
i see the attraction of the big digi speedo :smt023
cheers mark
350LC,Athena 392 big bore,stock porting,swiss cheese air box,stock reeds,spec11 pipes.(now TSA big bore pipes)
She might not be pretty but she will always be a fun ride


1982 YAMA RD350LC
98KDX 220R
1967 TRIUMPH TIGER
2001 TRIUMPH TT600

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JonW
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Re: My RD LC Athena 421 Hybrid with RGV suspenders

#356 Post by JonW » Fri Dec 07, 2018 5:56 pm

Jessy wrote: Fri Dec 07, 2018 9:08 am Nice job Jon, looks smart.
Can’t believe it’s been on the go for 7 years or so, bet you can’t wait to give it a good thrashing.
Jess
Thanks Jess.
Haha, well er, yes... tho for some of that time it was back in boxes while I did other things and then i ripped its spine out and it got the strengthened version etc. Ive also built a few other bikes while Ive had this one as well. I know what held it up for a lot of time (years) was me wondering why I couldnt get the chain to align. While when I started this project not many people had 421s or RGV conversions (and certainly not together) on the forums, not like they do now, but a lesson was learnt about engineering advice; go with your gut and not try to make yours work like someone else says they did with theirs etc.

nokturnal wrote: Fri Dec 07, 2018 10:18 am those are some inspiring clocks there Jon...

Would hate to think the $ you have into this bike. I think we need a current full side shot of it. :smt033
Thanks Dana.
Well, money and bikes... I try not to think about it really...
A new pic would be good but really this refresh has come with a lot of hidden stiff, ie YSS shock, VT2 chain, rad fan controller, filters, these clocks and a host of other small things that make a difference, but really from a few paces it looks much the same as it did before :/ I will do one, its still got a little way to go yet tho before it comes off my lift. Ive got footrest parts in my buckets to go for plating (has to wait until I strip the 500 as those parts will go in the same plating run) and I've got to finish my larger silencers yet.

two-stroke-brit wrote: Fri Dec 07, 2018 3:19 pm Nice work as usual ,
not a fan of the red illumination but "to each their own".
i see the attraction of the big digi speedo :smt023
cheers mark
Thanks Mark.
I usually hate the red, shouts 80's BMW to me, but on this bike it actually works and does look better IRL than the photos of course, its not easy to capture illumination on a camera. :/
80 XT500 Supermoto!
81 RD350LC Resto
82 RD421LC Hybrid
82 RD350LC decapitation project
82 RD250LC JDM '251LC' YPVS
83 RZ350 Resto
84 RZ500 Resto
85 RZ350 F1 Resto
86 RZ350 F2 Resto
86 RZ350 F2 Hybrid

Like Watches? www.PloProf.com & www.DeskDivers.com

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Re: My RD LC Athena 421 Hybrid with RGV suspenders

#357 Post by Questo vecchio rz » Sat Dec 08, 2018 4:52 am

Pretty cool modification :-)
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JonW
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Re: My RD LC Athena 421 Hybrid with RGV suspenders

#358 Post by JonW » Sat Dec 08, 2018 5:55 pm

Thanks QV
80 XT500 Supermoto!
81 RD350LC Resto
82 RD421LC Hybrid
82 RD350LC decapitation project
82 RD250LC JDM '251LC' YPVS
83 RZ350 Resto
84 RZ500 Resto
85 RZ350 F1 Resto
86 RZ350 F2 Resto
86 RZ350 F2 Hybrid

Like Watches? www.PloProf.com & www.DeskDivers.com

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Re: My RD LC Athena 421 Hybrid with RGV suspenders

#359 Post by JonW » Wed May 15, 2019 9:57 pm

Website now updated with the forum posts into a more condensed and rewritten form:
http://2smoked.com/Yamaha_RD350_LC_421c ... _Home.html
80 XT500 Supermoto!
81 RD350LC Resto
82 RD421LC Hybrid
82 RD350LC decapitation project
82 RD250LC JDM '251LC' YPVS
83 RZ350 Resto
84 RZ500 Resto
85 RZ350 F1 Resto
86 RZ350 F2 Resto
86 RZ350 F2 Hybrid

Like Watches? www.PloProf.com & www.DeskDivers.com

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