RZ350NC2 Resto Mod

[kpke]

Thanks Paul. I am anxious to get the gold paint onto the wheels. It's supposed to get even warmer next week so that maybe my opportunity.

1/17/22

Cleaned and assembled foot pegs using new Yambits rubber parts. The rubber parts worked quite well after cleaning off the mold release and I had to put a little bend on the tips of the passenger rubbers. They had a little gap between the rubber and the bracket at the ends. This was an easy fix.




Installed exhaust bungs onto powder coated footrest brackets. Assembled foot pegs onto foot rest brackets.








Disassembled shifter assembly, cleaned, polished, installed Honda shifter rubber (I had it in stock). Installed onto the bike assembled footrest brackets with shifter assembly on the left and brake pedal/MC/fluid reservoir on the right.




1/21/22

The gauge assembly cover for this bike is broken internally. The faceplate and lenses look quite nice but the moulded standoffs on the backside are broken.

So I pulled this one out of my spares inventory.



It is far from perfect but at first glance it appears it will clean up nice and the lenses will polish out. There are no cracks and all of the standoffs are in one piece on the back.

I started with a soap and water wash.



Then spent considerable time starting with wax, then using some very weak Meguiar’s rubbing compound. They cleaned up a bit and were shiny but there is what appears to me to be a hard water staining and/or etching on the two large lenses. I tried cleaning them off with denatured alcohol but this did not help.



Next I tried some Meguiar’s 105 ultra cut compound. This helped a bit but I could still see the etch marks. Running my fingernail across them I could feel the unevenness.

So this has turned from a cleanup and polish to a project like so many things.

I pulled out another spare that had cracked lenses and did some experimenting. Below is the process I ended up with.

Next I tried 3000 grit sandpaper on one of the lenses and this helped to even out the uneven area but made something else become apparent. These plastic lenses have a coating on them and this is what was etched away in some areas. I had a feeling about this. After sanding with 3000 grit over one of the bad areas I was able to polish it up quite nicely. But now the rest of the clear coating needs to come off to even it out. So I went to 2000 grit sandpaper to remove the clear coating. Then sanded with 3000 grit sandpaper. Then hand polished with the McGuire’s 105, over and over and over again. Sore fingers. Then hand polished with Meguiar’s 205 ultra finishing polish. Then hand polished with wax.

The end result was quite amazing, albeit after a tremendous amount of labor. The two large lenses in this photo have been through that whole process. The small one did not require it.



But now these lenses are no longer protected by a clear coating so I will have to be ultra-careful not to get gasoline on them and they will need to be cleaned very carefully so as not to scratch them.

[kpke]

1/23/22

After spending hours and hours bringing the lenses back on that spare gauge assembly cover, I decided I would try to repair the broken and cracked standoffs on the original one. I filled in the holes in the standoffs as best I could with epoxy and then stuffed toothpicks into the holes. Then built up the epoxy where the plastic had broken off.






1/24/22

After measuring the height of the built up epoxy on the standoffs, only one of them was tall enough to work with. I use this as a first article to see if my little experiment would work. I broke off the toothpick, center punched the wood toothpick piece in the hole, and then drilled a pilot hole into the wood toothpick. Next is drilling to 7/64” for tapping M4 machine threads into the standoff. Turning the tap gently by hand didn’t feel very good so I made a lead-in using a ⅛ inch drill bit. I was then able to tap the M4 threads into the standoff. It seemed to work quite nicely.

Next I had to mix up another batch of epoxy to build up the other three standoffs a little taller. Before I did that I drilled through the toothpicks that I had broken off (and shouldn’t have) so that I could stuff new toothpicks into the holes.



Then spent a little bit of time with a dremel tool grinding the epoxy down to near the correct height. Then used a small hand file to get them to the correct height.



Next I had to grind the excess epoxy off of the sides of the standoffs because the base of the standoffs need to fit into a recessed area into the mating part. Then use an awl to make a center punch mark in the wood toothpicks, drill a pilot hole, drill to 7/64 inch, and then drill the ⅛ inch lead in. Then gently tap the M4 threads into the standoffs hoping like hell I don’t hear any cracking noises. Success.



I’m still not quite done with this thing. I have done a successful test assembly as you can see here, so it appears that the threaded epoxy is going to work. The speedo and tachometer faces are better on the one you see in this photo. However, the needles are a bit faded. I tried to pull the needles off so that I could replace them with the brighter ones from the original gauges but it seemed like they were going to break. In this photo I need to swap in the temperature gauge from the original set (this one has some white on the face), but it will have a brighter needle. Probably nobody would ever notice except me.

[kpke]

2/1/22

Sometime recently I built up some repop Yambits turn signal assemblies.

[JonW]

I had to do a similar thing on a top clock cover with the stand offs but i glued on some plastic dowel (from some other project, or maybe a shoe stretcher thing that came in a pair of shoes or something like that) and then drilled that and used self tappers, which is what i thought were OEM but maybe are not lol. worked well.

[kpke]

Yes Jon, OEM are self tapping screws. But I didn't want to chance trying to use self tapping screws going into the hard epoxy thinking it might crack.

[tacky1]

The clocks look great Ken, The lens are just perfect,,,

[Yellow02Z06]

Great project - I just bought an RZ350 2 days ago….it runs great but is rough cosmetically…interested in your work for sure…..I’m actually in LA area too for a few more weeks…..

[kpke]

Thanks Paul and Yellow02Z06.

Yellow, everything you see here is in videos on my YouTube channel (link in my signature) in much greater detail. Check it out when you have time.

Have a great weekend everyone!

[Yamavarna]

You constantly amaze me with your persistence and old school patience, they look close to new

[85RZwade]

yup, what Yamavarna said. wish you were next door!

[kpke]

Thanks guys. The compliments are very much appreciated.

[kpke]

Edit: Posted question in bodywork.

[TwoStrokeNut]

I've been away from this 350 site for quite some time while being preoccupied with that NS400R. Looks like I've been missing all the fun here! Keep up the great work Ken!!

[kpke]

3/5/22

Once again I haven’t been keeping up on my storybook again. Here are some recent highlights.


Wheel painting.

I spent a loooooooong time taping off the polished areas of these wheels. Then spent a looooooong time trimming the tape.






It was a beautiful springlike winter day so perfect for painting. Finishing up the taping took forever so the painting task didn’t begin until after lunch. The wheels were primed and then the Duplicolor gold wheel paint HWP111 was put on in several light coats as per the recommendation of the Duplicolor tech rep I spoke to.





That paint comes in a whopping 12 ounce can which I purchased one of. This is after three light coats, the last one being extremely light.



The wheels looked beautiful but I decided to make a run for another can of paint. I’ve come this far on these things, let’s add a little bit more paint. Hoping AutoZone would have this paint since they are closer but they didn’t. Next up O’Reillys and back home with another 12 ounce can of gold wheel paint. I used about half of the second can.

The end result was quite nice.

[kpke]

Finish up the gauge pod assembly.

R&R the good/bright gauge needles from the original tachometer and speedometer gauges, which the faces had some blemishes, and put them on some spare gauges, which have near-perfect faces, but had somewhat faded needles. A tricky operation the first time you do it. I had helpful directions from my friend Paul. Thank you Paul.

This is the original tachometer with the brighter needle.



This is the replacement tachometer after the needle was replaced.



All gauges now reassembled.



The good set to be installed into the pod.



The reassembled pod using the nice gauges, the epoxy reworked top panel, and a really nice back panel from spares inventory.



But there is something horribly wrong. This motorcycle will be effectively brand-new after it is reassembled. So let’s remove that speedometer and see about resetting the odometer to 0.



Never done this before like many other things I do. So for this operation I received expert very hellpful directions from Canadian friend John. Thank you John.



That’s better.