My RZ250 that will be a 350....

[kpke]

More nice work Jon. Are you putting clear over the 9 year old decals?

[tacky1]

They were never a perfect match even from the Factory Jon, Mine are off a little if you look real close, But once you move a foot or two away, they will never be noticed..

[JonW]

More nice work Jon. Are you putting clear over the 9 year old decals?

Thanks Ken.
The tank will need clear, but not on the rest as OEM they didnt have it.

[JonW]

They were never a perfect match even from the Factory Jon, Mine are off a little if you look real close, But once you move a foot or two away, they will never be noticed..

Yes I reckon youre right. When we had these bikes back in the day I reckon we never even looked at them that much, just rode the hell out of them, its only now we care how they look lol

A guy came over to collect some RGV wheels this morning, on a 200+ km SV650 he despatch rides. He was like i was in the 80s, looks were irrelevant, the bike was his transport and livelyhood etc.

[tacky1]

They were never a perfect match even from the Factory Jon, Mine are off a little if you look real close, But once you move a foot or two away, they will never be noticed..

Yes I reckon youre right. When we had these bikes back in the day I reckon we never even looked at them that much, just rode the hell out of them, its only now we care how they look lol

A guy came over to collect some RGV wheels this morning, on a 200+ km SV650 he despatch rides. He was like i was in the 80s, looks were irrelevant, the bike was his transport and livelyhood etc.

There ya go :)
I had an argument with my painter, Hes a little OCD :P He fitted all the bodywork and wanted everything perfect, I didn't want it perfect, The side panels were usually off a little with the tailpiece from the factory, He wouldn't fit them a little off, LOL, The silly little things :P

[JonW]

A bit more forwards progress...

The decals for these models are huge! Even the white between the colours is part of the decal. To be honest its been a nightmare to get these on, but on they are. I did some LC decals after and was wondering why i ever fussed about doing em as they are so small and thin haha.

Anyway, finally added all the fixings so these mid panels got new OEM grommets in with new OEM collars... and mostly new OEM screws... and new OEM nut plates (replated to OEM green). Of course, I never had any of those parts with my panels. The cost to do these is stupid of course, but worth it when you see the finished result.

The solo tail has a new cruzinimage pad (they were a US$12 bargain) and I reused the grommets that came with it, of course there are no part numbers for those as I couldnt find any part numbers for the tail at all.

The standard ducktail had new grommets as well, mine were long gone. Just got to fit the rear edge trims to the two tails and they can be put away for now I guess until the F1 gets onto the lift. Ive still got to paint the tank and redo the red on the mudguard and top fairing.

[85RZwade]

Those parts look better than new Jon! You do great work.

[JonW]

Thanks Wade. Very kind of you mate.

[silverstrom]

A guy came over to collect some RGV wheels this morning, on a 200+ km SV650 he despatch rides. He was like i was in the 80s, looks were irrelevant, the bike was his transport and livelyhood etc.

Sorry Jon, I just read this again and realized what it said...the guy picked up RGV wheels while riding an SV650. That is a dedicated biker. Whatever it takes to get the job done when 2 wheels is all you have, and there you were playing with your toys trying to get the lines oh-so right. I can see how that might seem odd to the guy, given his lot in life.

And yes, great job on the paintwork. Shows what patience can do.

[Smoker]

Excellent work.

Super cool bike.

[85RZwade]

cruzinimage is out of the solo seat pads

[JonW]

Thanks guys!

John, they SV guy was loving riding his SV to be honest, had no need for a car at all. lovely bloke too.

Pete, Thanks mate!

Wade, he will probably get them in again. he ran out a few years back and ordered more. why not email and ask him, he may have an odd one lying about or even have a new batch coming, failing that he will at least know people want them. I asked him if he would do a 500 version, he just came back to me, sadly no.

[85RZwade]

Good idea, I want to try his pistons as well

[JonW]

Ive used his pistons, they were fine. My reborer said he thought they were decent quality, especially after I'd given him some other ones for the job that he didnt like at all lol

[JonW]

Anyone for a bit of a canoe? ....I've got paddles!



I rarely do any work on this project, its at the back of the shed but Ive started to sort out a few things on my F1. Since I decided it would be more resto than resto-mod I figured I should put more of it back to standard.

One job was to buy and fit new indicators. I don’t really like the 85 indicators, but hey it is what it is. It was part of Yam trying to make the 85 models look/feel like mini 500s. Think about it; 500 clocks, 500 top fairing, 500 lower pipe style on the 51L pipes and of course, rectangular paddle turn signals.

But... the lenses in the new correct rectangular inds i bought were not all the same type. The fronts come with the correct style (number of sections in the reflector) lenses but the rears dont. Easy enough to buy a set of the correct lenses for the fronts as they are still available for about $5 each and swap them. That went well, which was weird as I didn’t think they fit very well previously when I did them on the 500. Hmm... Anyway, I figured that I’ll take it if it was easy and move on.

I was almost finished and about to bolt them on and and I sadly noticed that the lens fixings were silver on three of them and yellow/gold on the other one. Hmm... Judging by the original 500’s units they were originally all yellow/gold. Out they all came and into the plating they go... So I have stunt spare stainless bolts holding the lenses in for now.

A note on the parts books for these 85 models. The indicators are not correctly listed in eat least the Aussie version, where the front and rears are the same part number. This leads to funny looking droopy front indicators where they are pulled in tight against the fairing. Be wary of that if you order these, the front are different to the back.

Ok... Flushed with the success of these I figured I’d sort out the sets of F/N2s for the F2 since I’d just removed two very nice ones from the back of the F1. This started lots of faffing about with inds...

So I dig thru the F2 boxes and find all the inds I’d saved for that project. Some of these are XT250 units taken off early in an XTs life and some were well used but nice from the forums but could have come from other yams of the era. I figured I’d choose best set of front and rears and id be sorted. I soon discovered that the F2 oval style also enjoys two types of lenses with different reflector designs! Now with all the inds in one place, including all my the spares, I find a couple of the earlier (I think) type and think to myself that the longer fronts were bought as a pair and one looks to be right, the other is black with crud. hmm.. clean it off and under the crud it’s a different lens. hmm... find another early type with couple of light scratches. I sand and polish them out. Sorted? Well...

So, after way more effort that I thought I now I have 4 indicators. 2 long and 2 short; 2 right and 2 left (printing says 'top' on correct sides/places etc), wiring is correct too. All good.

I start to clean up the dirt on the bodies and the really dirty one mentioned earlier is badly gouged. Damn! how did i miss that? I then realise these units come apart. Locate the best-of-the-rest body on a short one, unscrew reflector / bulb holder screws then the big nut and its apart. Hold on tho... The other ind has what looks like rivets... wtf...?! Time to break out the Neji Saurus pliers and what do you know, they unscrew. Theyre just screws with no ‘+’ on ‘em. Yeah, thanks yam! I pull that apart, undo the big nut and swap parts over. Clean it up and rebuild it. And I’m done.

Wow... way to to lose a couple of hours of messing about lol Anyway, I now have a nice usable set of OEM inds with the right lenses and proper left/right wiring colours all ready to fit when i build F2.

So, time to grab a beer and relax? Hell no... Its on to another task.

I decide that now the clutch perch has arrived so I should fit that. I realised a while back that I was missing the cranked lever/perch setup that only the 85 models have. Mad but true, Yam used the 29L part on the 83/4 and 86-on bikes, but did the 85 totally differently. Ok, full disclosure, I’m going to leave the PWKs and the natty lever choke setup I made that sits on the bar switch for now. So with the bar end, grip, switch and old perch off and new clutch perch and lever is fitted. Just waiting on Yam Japan to supply the new adjuster parts and I’ll reconnect the clutch. :)



The day isnt done yet, just time for one last longer task...

I bought a nos seatlock a while back with 2 keys. Twirling two screws and I’d swapped it with the one already fitted from the matched lock set seat lock I created a while back, so that bit was easy. Next up was to reconfigure the ignition and fuel cap.

I got luckly really. The key code was same, phew... No barrels to find and replace. Even better though was that the numbers were only 9 apart! And that equals only a single tumbler change. :)

What was cool is that I didn’t use the fuel cap on the LC that came with the new Yam lockset I bought for that resto as I refrubsihed the original offset cap I had for it that I rekeyed to the new keys, so the brand new Yam feul cap was spare and became the fuel cap for this bike. With that cap being new along with the seat/helmet lock this is becoming very good news indeed for this bike. I should add that the ignition wasn’t left as old junk tho, I mentioned earlier that it was built from original and new aftermarket parts so that has all new electric parts and everything else has been replated. As close as this bike is ever going to get to a ‘new lockset’ :)



Here is my nos key gracing the ign. The set are all keyed alike now to the 2 nos keys. Bliss... i have strange idea of bliss maybe lol