New crank

Yamaha RD350 YPVS Crankshaft

My new crank arrived from Yambits. Seems pretty good. Shame it didn’t come with small end bearings, I will have to order some.

I maybe presuming, but it looks like the crank may have been built up by Grampian Motors. My crank was wrapped in newspaper with Grampian Motors tape holding it together.

Just got to get my crankcase top half fixed and painted (more on that to follow) and I’ll be able

Grampian Motors

to put the bottom end back together. It will be nice to be re-assembling something rather than taking stuff apart.

Slight accident

Had quite a few parts turn up over the last couple of weeks and I was going to write up a few posts over the weekend, but unfortunately ended up in Accident & Emergency on Saturday morning with a badly burnt hand.

I was helping my brother-in-law remove the engine from his race car and managed to pour boiling hot radiator water over my hand, not good. Anyway, luckily it was just my hand that got burnt and not our faces, the water was under considerable pressure. A lesson learnt, let the engine cool completely before taking water pipes off, or just stick to bikes 🙂

Anyway, with regards the RD, I’ve had a crank turn up, some wheels and tyres (my eBay bargain) and I’ve been checking out the state of my forks. Stay tuned, I will write up some posts covering these bits-n-bobs this week.

Attacking the frame

OK, so I took the plunge and ordered up a new crank, it’s on it’s way :-). I decided to stick with the standard pinned main bearing version rather than the fancy one with ‘O’ rings designed for worn cases. My case looks OK, so all should be good (I hope).

Yamaha RD350 YPVS N1 Frame

I spent some time over the weekend attacking the frame. Had the usual problems with rusted bolts, breaking bolts, soft bolt heads etc. but with copious amounts of penetrating fluid, some ingenuity and a few choice swear words, I managed to remove the front end and most of the bits up to the middle of the frame.

The person that invented the Impact Driver should get a medal and the person in charge of metallurgy at Yamaha should be given a new job, maybe as the tea boy at Fukushima.

Exhausted! (my supply of wire brushes)

Yamaha RD350 YPVS Exhaust

I’ve been painting again. This time one of the exhausts. As you can see in the comparison picture, there was quite a bit of surface  rust to get rid of first. I’ve worn out at least one wire brush and a wire disc for the drill and painted about half a tin of Jenolite onto the rust to keep it at bay. The result isn’t too bad. I kept the road rash on the pipe intact, just to keep some character (and I also didn’t think filler would work on a hot exhaust).

Time to start work on the second pipe. I may see if I can get it sand blasted to save a bit of time (and wire brushes).

New parts

Some of my new parts arrived yesterday :-).

You don’t get much for £230! but I’ve got all of the seals, gaskets, oil lines a rather expensive thermostat (£38) and a tube of crankcase sealant which came in an interesting box 🙂 lets hope the product is better than the spelling on the box.

Still working on the crankshaft, I’m really going to have to bite the bullet at some point and drop the cash on a new crank!

Off again!

OK, I’ve sold a few things and have some cash to continue.

Since my last post I’ve ordered up all of the gaskets, oils seals, clutch springs etc. that I need to put the engine back together. There’s still a question mark over the crankshaft. There are two possibilities, one standard job, or one that has ‘O’ rings around the main bearings to stop them rattling in worn cases. I’m not sure which to go with yet. I’m thinking about just sticking with the standard crank with pinned mains.

Yamaha RD350 YPVS Head

I’ve had my rattle cans out (paint cans) and sprayed up the head, I’ve also done one of the barrels (in satin black). The second barrel is waiting on a soda blast before painting.

I’ve also started to strip and clean up one of the exhausts. Both exhausts are quite rusty and are taking quite a bit of elbow grease to get cleaned up. Luckily, under the grime and surface rust, they are in good shape, so hopefully they

Yamaha RD350 YPVS Exhaust

should paint up quite nicely.

Cashflow problem

As you can see, I’ve not been up to much for a while. I’ve been shopping around for the best solution to my crankshaft problem. Do I buy new or do I get my old crank reconditioned?

After pricing things up, it looks as though the new crank from Yambits is going to be the cheaper option for me. Bearing in mind I’ll have a £50 postage bill for the round trip if I get my old crank reconditioned and the work will cost about £285, it kind of makes more economic sense to go new which I what I think I will do.

Yambits RD350 YPVS Crankshaft

I’ve priced up everything else I will need for the engine rebuild and it comes to just under £500 (including the £300 new crank). I just need to take the leap and buy the bits, it seems a lot of money to shell out when this is the first engine I’ve ever rebuilt, I just hope the thing runs when I’ve finished :-).

Whilst I summon up the courage to drop the cash on the engine bits, I’ve decided to start stripping the frame, more on that to come.

Christmas came early

Sealey Soda Blaster

I’ve got a new toy, and it’s brilliant!

I knew that I was going to need to do a lot of blasting, and when I looked at what I needed to do on the bike, I saw it was mainly paint/corrosion stripping on a range of alloys. I had a look around the Internet, and a lot of people were talking about Soda Blasting. Some people said it was good, some people weren’t too sure about it. After a lot of reading, and finding a Sealey starter kit on special I decided to take the plunge.

RD350 YPVS Cylinder Head

Today, I got it set up and set about stripping the paint off of my clutch case and cylinder head. As it was my first outing with the kit, I wasn’t sure how ferocious it was going to be, so I practised on a beer can first! (unfortunately the can was empty :-() After a few tweaks on the air pressure (I found 70 PSI to be good) and a tweak on the Soda flow tap, I got the hang of it and started on my clutch cover.

RD350 Clutch Cover

The clutch cover didn’t have that much paint on it, the paint that was left on it was in difficult areas to get a wire brush into. So off I went, full blast (sorry for the pun).

The paint came off really easily and because the Soda is kind to the alloy, the mating faces were not damaged in the least, just nice and clean once I’d finished.

Yamaha RD350 Clutch Cover Soda Blasted

After blasting, it is a simple case of blowing the Soda out  with the air line and washing the part. The good thing with Soda is that it dissolves in liquid so there is no need to worry that grit will make its way into your engine destroying all of your good work.

Yamaha RD350 Soda Blasted Cylinder Head

Just a note, if your part contains bearings, it’s a good idea to use a solvent based liquid to wash your part. I chose to use a 50/50 mix if paraffin and diesel which works for me.

If anyone in Guernsey wants me to blast something, just drop me a line and I’m sure we can work something out 🙂

Restoring my clocks

Work on my engine has paused whilst I find a crankshaft and a power valve bush (or find the cash to buy the items new Ouch!).

Yamaha RD350 clock cover

In the meantime, I’ve been finishing off my clocks. You may have seen my previous post showing the fascia, but I didn’t show you the back cover. For some reason, someone had hacked a big hole in the back. Now I could have just gone out and spent fifty quid on a new one, but this isn’t a “deep pocket*” restoration, so I had a go at fixing the problem.

Yamaha RD350 clock cover

I started by using a piece of fibreglass to block the hole from the inside. Once the fibreglass had hardened, I then set about filling the hole using P38 car body filler. Once the filler had gone off, I then used quite a course sandpaper to reform the filler to the correct shape. Then once I was happy, I applied another slither of filler and sanded this flush.

The next step was to rub down the entire casing with a scotchbrite pad and then gave it all a good wash and left it in the sun (we actually had some sun!) to dry thoroughly.

Yamaha RD350 clock cover

Once dry, I used a matt black paint specifically designed for use on plastic bumpers.

I’m not sure if it was because I was spraying in a warm greenhouse and the paint was drying in the air whilst coming out of the can, or the paint is designed to do it, but the finish left on the plastic is quite nice. It’s left a matt black brushed finish which looks really good!

Yamaha RD350 clock cover

Once the back casing was sorted, It was then time to sort out the plugs on the wiring. In the past, someone had cut the old connectors off and fitted individual bullet type connectors, not nice! I bought some multiconnectors online and soldered these onto the wires. The result is a lot neater I think you’ll agree.

Yamaha RD350 speedo connector

*My definition of “deep pocket restoration” – a restoration where money is no object. All broken, rusty, discoloured etc. parts are renewed rather than reconditioned. Ending up with a new bike, not a restored one.

Parts back from the Engineers

RD350 YPVS Barrels and Head

Got my barrels and pistons back from the Engineering firm. They all cleaned up really well.

The barrels are ready for paint, but I will need to strip the head prior to painting. I’m not sure whether the original barrels were matt or gloss black, can anyone help? I will have to use off-the-shelf spray cans, something like PJ1 if that stuff is still available. I have seen some Simoniz matt black engine enamel which might do the trick. I’m also unsure if the top of the crankcase and clutch cover should be gloss or matt black, I think they were gloss?

I’ve also been cleaning up the power valves. Needless to say they were pretty coked up. A

Yamaha Power valves

good soaking in Gunk and a scrub with the wife’s toothbrush brought them back. It was more  difficult cleaning the wifes toothbrush so she wouldn’t notice 🙂 (joke!)

The valves need new o-rings and oil seals (which aren’t cheap) which I will order when I get the rest of my spares.

I couldn’t find where the plain bearing shown in the picture on the right went. It seems to be surplus, anyone got any ideas? I don’t see it shown on the Yamaha exploded diagram and it doesn’t look like it’s broken off any of the bushes?

UPDATE – Found the problem! The washer looking bit has broken off the inside of the inboard bush, Doh! new bush/s please!