My newest project 73 rd350

73 rd 350 satin a garage for 30 years motor is locked but i have a complete top end ready to bolt on guy wants $300 red version of my other one pic of the blue one is mine. Hope he calls me in the am

 

Re: Hoping this is the next for my collection

Got the bike pick it up saturday bike only has 5k miles. Will get brakes motor and tires and anything else it needs done over the winter not bad for $300

 

Re: Hoping this is the next for my collection

awesome!

 

Re: Hoping this is the next for my collection

Great deal, I'm jealous.

 

Re: Hoping this is the next for my collection

that ford truck in the background is pretty sweet too. I'm looking for one of those to hot rod....

 

Re: Hoping this is the next for my collection

Sweet !!!

 

Re: Hoping this is the next for my collection

A great classic, in my opinion!

Bravo!

 

Re: Hoping this is the next for my collection

nothin' wrong with that, I'd ride it.

 

Re: Hoping this is the next for my collection

im green with envy, shouldnt take to much to get it ticking over, hows the rest of it? chrome, forks etc

 

Re: Hoping this is the next for my collection

Nice, I have red 73. I bet you can free the engine and salvage the jugs and pistons if you take your time. The trick with penetrating oil is patience. Give it a lot time to do its thing. Get a piece of hard wood and cut it the diameter of the piston so the force when driven is on the skirt rather than the crown. With a hammer you should be able to free it. The penetrating oil may damage the labernith seal so don't use so much that it collects in the crank case. Good luck.

 

Re: Hoping this is the next for my collection

Great buy. What a steal.

 

Re: Hoping this is the next for my collection

penetrating oil and sitting is no problem. Its my winter project. Still getting the jetting sorted on the other one. If it does not free up without damage. I have a a pair of 350 jugs and 65mm pistons i was gonna use for the 250 just need to have them hogged out to fit the pistons. I have to raise the exhaust port a little. Every part will be taken off and cleaned and polished like i did on the 250. I am sure the caliper and master need rebuilding as well as ss brake hose tires. Its very clean and un molested. Have to go back and pick it up sat will take before and after pics of it. At this rate i will never finish my maxim x. Should be an easy fix hopefully crank seals are good. Will take more time cleaning and polishing everything. But i like that type of work. Heck i am getting fast at doing things to them the other day i took the blue one from sitting on the floor put it on the drive on lift strapped it down pulled the carbs and drained them in 10 min lol. Takes a bit longer to assemble the y boot can be a pain to install with 1 person.

 

Re: Hoping this is the next for my collection

cant wait to see some good pics, lucky b@#$tard. as you know ive the LC, but would love an AC to make a pair,you cant lose with that bike, ken

 

Re: Hoping this is the next for my collection

I would love to have a lc or rz also they are just to expensive over here. Think i am gonna do the same mods to this one as i did with my other rd but get a better set of chambers i am not crazy over the DG's . Just did the dave f carb mods to it supposto get rid of the 5500 flat spot. Was just hard for me to take a drill to the air jet. The needles and needle jets were about $50. Just trying to get the jetting right you run much smaller jets with the air bleed drilled. Went from a 210 main down to a 170-180 pilot dropped from a 35 down to a 27.5. Ordered the jets waiting for them. Even stripped the black of the carbs and polished them. You can see the shrouded needle jet in the last pic

 

Re: Hoping this is the next for my collection

Got the old girl home needs complete front brake rebuild master cyl hoses caliper. slides is stuck in the carbs. Big relief inside of the tank looks good give it a good clean out and its ready. I need to order a key plus more then likely a top end rebuild need to spray some penetrating oil in there plus tires and tubes. Cant loose any money no matter what bet i could get close to what i paid for the bike just selling the tank. And no i have no plans on selling or parting out.

 

Here you go ken got some of the bike after taking a sponge to 1 side. Everything will be taken off and cleaned. I just can't work on the motor when its so dirty

 

Looking good so far.

 

scrubbing up nicely, nothing wrong with a bit of age related patina, they will look good parked next to each other with the front wheels pointing in the same direction, whats the next colour going to be? id be getting as many as i could at that price.

 

fantastic find, had a 75 come into the shop a bit ago, just a blast to ride and they sure are quick!!

 

and X2 on the y-boot being a bitch, decided to switch up the calbe routing and had to take it off and put it back on twice to set the slide hegth again because the clutch cable was pulling up on one of the throttle cables when the lever was pulled in.

 

It has a long way to go. Pulled the bad piston out tonight. From what i saw the owner cleaned the carbs and could not get the boot back on the right side from the air cleaner and it ran lean. Check out the piston. The bore looks fine but i have a set of 350 jugs std bore i am gonna use the right side one and then i will have the cyls punched out to fit my 65mm pistons for my 250 it will be 357 cc then. Gonna replace the crank seals just in case.
Ken those were the only colors in the states in 73 all the 350s were red and 250 blue. Hard to believe they are both original paint jobs from the factory. 41 years old this month both are with in 100 miles of each other.
Yes they are fun bikes start adding performance parts and they are little rockets. Hard to believe back in the 70s they were faster on the track then the honda 750s thus giving them the name of giant killer. The nerwer ones like kens liquid cooled can be punched out and stroked to 440 cc and can produce up to 120 hp with the right set up

 

but using drill bits to set the slides works like tits though

fast fast indeeeeed!

 

The clutch cable is very close to the choke lever and idle screw.I guess when you set the slide height with a drill bit you run the idle screws out all the way? The way i was taught which is a pain in the butt pull the carbs make sure cables are all the way seated raise the slide with the throttle til its even with the top of the bore adjust the other til its the same height. I am gonna put a y boot on the 350 also maybe the banshee crossover I took it off the 250 when the cyls were connected not enough velocity and had to run a 35-40 pilot jet. Had to do the dave f mod could not get the needle and needle jet set correct.

 

thats the way i set my slides , cant go wrong, anyway for anyone who's not sure what an rd350lc looks like , here tis again, , sorry i cant help it. id be snapping up any 250/350 RD's myself, imho they would make a good long term investment.

 

Love the lc They are getting fairly hard to get here and to get a nice one your looking 4k+ for that kind of money you can get a decent zx12 gsxr1100 that is more then a cbr900rr . Remember when you first got it ones over here much worse are going for 2-3k I just cant talk myself into it. Even daytona specials over here are running 4-6k. My oldies every year are jumping in price very good investment for sure

 

im drooling

 

i would love a daytona special , this one is excellent but expensive, in fact any good ones that come up ,people are wanting silly money. i still cant get over how cheap bikes are in the US compared to here
http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/YAMAHA-RD400 ... 35d&_uhb=1

 

I would not mind a daytona special. 30 years ago i had a built 78 400 last year before they put all the emission crap on them. You just have to be in the right place at the right time. Its funny as soon as the add came up i just happened to look on cl wrote the guy 2x then called him 1st thing in the am. After i called he said he had to pull the add over 50 calls in an hour. A few days before i got this almost bought a zl 1000 eliminator with 19k miles. The guy buys and sells bikes told me it needed a slave cyl kit. I thought about it and figured if it was that simple he would have fixed it he wanted 1k for it
Ken is your lift a normal sized one over there? Mine is about a foot longer then yours. Can you get your fj on it.

 

yeah the fj fits on ok, it has a bit you can add on but i dont need it, what you see there is 180 cm or 6 foot, at the moment the cb750 is on it no worries, as far as a clutch slave cylider kit goes , if thats all it needed its a fairly cheap/easy fix,at least on my fj anyway,, from memory you can get a whole new slave cylinder for around 70 bucks

 

Thats crazy why would anyone pay that. If you rode it at all the seals would start leaking. The bike essentially needs a complete rebuild before putting in service. Brakes crank seals and all the rest of the seals tires ect. I guess if you had a lot of money and were gonna put it in a collection just to look at would be fine.

Ken as long as they fit would be great easier to walk around. Mine has a removable plate where the rear tire is for changing tires. Don't think i would be messing with the bikes like i do without it so much easier

 

Mt wisecos just showed up. Nice pistons i would have went with the rd400 pistons i have that are new i did not llike the way the rings looked would have been $100 for rings plus i needed pins $16.00 ea. So i looked up the wisecos 393m06450 1/2mm over stock was finding them from $290.00 down to $212.00 one of the motorcycle supply shops for amazon had them $110.00 off per piston to clear out their stock. paid $34.00 ea free shipping they come with rings pin and clips. Held my breath thinking someone pulled the rings or something nope number is stamped in the pistons right ring number. Have to box everything up and send it to bore tech that will give me a few weeks to keep cleaning

 

Here is a better pic of the new toy . Time to disassemble clean and restore parts are headed to the machine shop this week

 

Everything is ready to ship to bore tech. I have the pipes sprocket cover taken off as well as the carbs. 2 stroke oil is all drained out. Time to clean out all the crud from the inside of the countershaft sprocket cover i bought new seals shifter clutch rod ect. Will get the brushes and cleaning solution out this weekend scrub the frame and parts of the engine cases top front bottom get 41 years of oil dust ect off then polish and paint both side covers and wax the frame. 1 Carb is clean stripped and polished i need to do the other tomorrow. Where the former owner hosed the bike off before i got it water got into the 1 carb where they cut the gas hose but was able to get them all apart. Just clean strip polish put back together and put both in a zip lock bag til i am ready for them.

 

Waiting for the cyls and pistons to get back. Motor is all clean most of the frame has been polished and waxed. All fluids drained. Pulled the side covers have to strip polish and paint them in the next few days

 

A few pics. I have 4 heads 2 race heads and the stockers that someone had the combustion chamber intake and exhaust ceramic coated. Had to take the ceramic coat off in the exhaust port it was chipping so i did not want to take a chance. One pic shows the ceramic coat and the race head. The next 2 show polished fin and what the head looks like without the ceramic coating. This head is ready for paint. when i am done painting i have to cc the heads and see which i will use so compression is right.

 

Ooohhh combustion chamber porn...

Only the true "motorheads" amongst us get it; while we're drooling others simply can't figure out why the fuss over an old 2-stroke.

Nice work. Really brings back memories. (My Norton is a '74.)

 

good pick up on the wisecos ,are you going to run premix or an oil pump? i prefer the pump personally,

 

I run oil pumps have never had a problem with one with all the 2 strokes i have ever had. To much of a pain to mix plus if your out someplace and you run low on gas your stuck. I do not want to carry a nasty oil container. I have to clean everything good from where they poured the oil in the tank to fast and it burped and they never cleaned it up. I know i am asking a lot but when i am done if i work on something i don't want to get messy.

 

Thanks fitz i love building go fast engines in cars and bikes. I am in no rush with this one so i am trying to do everything right. Here is the pic of the finished head

 

Finally cyls and pistons arrived from bore tech. I made a big mess cleaning out the crank wells. Thought all the penetrating oil and atf was out. Cleaned out the oil holes and sprayed come compressed air. Flew all over my honda ate the shine off the polished covers . It took me an hour and a half on the buffer to get the stains off. Hopefully in a week or so i will have the cyls painted fins sanded and completely washed out to get the ultra fine specs off the bore from the machine shop.

 

Whoops.

I once got bright yellow overspray on my wife's brand new, white, Toyota. Thankfuly she was out of town and I had the rest of the weekend to get it all cleand up and shiny again.

 

Took the plunge yanked the motor gonna put crank seals in it check everything over. Cyls and pistons will be here tomorrow. Cant believe took less then an hour to get it out by myself. I pulled a maxim x motor out Sunday used an engine hoist to move it from lift to work bench. It weighs probably 4 times as much as this 50-75 lb motor. The whole top end cyls pistons and heads all together 14 lbs before removing .5 from each bore. Guess thats why with a full tank of gas its less then 350 lbs

 

Awesome.

Car in the background?

 

one of the toys 79 cutlass 500cid built it to race and turned it into a toy for the street

 

Nice, you should throw up some pics of that sometime.

Shoulda guessed from your name lol

 

Cyls are all back together. Bore tech did a great job machining. Cyl to wall .0025 ring gap is .011 exactly what wiseco forged 2 stroke pistons are supposto be. I did not send the rings so was surprised that they were perfect. Gonna put the carbs and y boot on tomorrow and pull the swing arm. I am waiting for a new points cam should be here middle of next week so i can't put the heads on till i put the alt and points cam in. So i can time it with a dial indicator. I have to pull the swing arm so i can paint the rear foot peg pipe mounting bracket bolt goes right thru the bracket. Hopefully by next weekend or the weekend after i will be able to fire it up.

 

good onya cutlass, coming along nicely, ken

 

Got the other side put together carbs and y boot. Had to stop there and pull the swing arm and bracket that i need to paint was raining today. Tomorrow hi temp 70 after that low mid 60 to cold to paint outside. As you can tell by the pics will be spending a few hours on the buffer should be done with swing arm and all attachments by mid week when the pts cam get here.

 

Use some aircraft paint remover on that backing plate and it will be easier to buff without the old clearcoat in the way.

Motor's lookin' good!

 

Don't think there is much clear coat left but will try. The corrosion is bad enough it keeps stalling the buffer. I am hoping i don't have to sand it.. Once you start takes for ever. If i can get it off with white rouge it won't leave scratches. We will see tomorrow afternoon. Just pulled the bushings out of the swing arm to get all the old grease cleaned out degreased the swing arm ready to sand and paint if its not to cold tomorrow. Just have to spray the swing arm. The only part of the 41 year old paint that needs it.