Time to get out the wrenches

This is the kind of light restoration I'm trying to avoid. That said I just love the colors of the 75, and suspension upgrades are always justifiable, and, and.....oh no.

You crack me up Saul.

I may have to get the wrenches out again so soon after the Norton, going to look at a RPOS tomorrow.

Marc

....... didja find that castor bean 2-T oil of yer dreams yet?

Congrats on the new bike. I think it looks great just as it is. Two stroke street bikes rock! I have a Suzuki T500. I love riding around on a bike that was banned by the EPA!

If you want that vintage bean oil smell Maxima 927 is excellent but it is for premix only. The guys on the Maico board turned me on to it. Won't work for injection though.

Debby

Nice

Damn... wRenches.

Congrats on the bike.

Any resurrection is a good thing. Glad to see you found a nice one.

I originally restored that one above, it didn't need much since it ony had 2K easy miles (the crash bar and sissy bar rack quickly went in the trash)

To me the RD isn't allot of fun unless it's on a twisty road especially when it comes to regular (higher speed) roads. They're kinda hard on the license when riding surface streets Fuel range can be an issue when riding outside of town, esp in down here in NM. Unlike you guys we have to ride a good ways to get to the nice street riding, after one 30mi ride on a 75mph highway I decided it's allot more fun wrenching on the RD than actually riding the thing. I think I've owned about 8 of them so I know their limitations and weak points and have owned some pretty quick ones. Stock the pipes are heavy, restrict the upper RPM range and hurt cornering clearance plus a nice set of pipes will sell for about $350, almost half of what I paid for the bike.

A few of the old road racing tricks to the motor really helped bring out its potential w/o ruining the ridability but in the end it was still 70s air cooled tech. Unfortunately the things that appealed to me about the RD years ago, namely street racing was stupid then and idiotic now.

I didn't have the room to start a collection so I decided to have a little fun and try to make a few bucks. A nicely done (resto modded or cafe'd) RD will usually bring quite a bit more $$ than a stocker unless you're sittin on really nice example and most of those are in collections or have been shipped back to Japan with the other collectables. I sold that one to someone in Conn for easily 3x what it would brought stock and allot more than I've ever sold one for previously. In the end the RD was a really good investment that paid for my ZRX and was a great time reliving the old wrenching days

As you say, we have some pretty decent street riding within a short range, and that's what I'm looking forward to with the RD. I'm looking to do short hops on it.

To some extent it's an experiment for me. I've taken a good bit of time off from bikes and now I'm interested in seeing if I can enjoy riding without having to go balls out all the time like I used to. I've never owned an RD and always had an interest in them, so I'm trying one out for a while.

So, we'll see how it goes. As it is, I'm fixing little things here and there. Got it running pretty good, but it has a few items that need attention before it can be a daily rider.

YaHooo!!!

Nice Grape Ape!

Grape Ape! I love it.

Maybe I'll keep it purple after all...

F'n beauty. Congrats.

Hey, we're going back out to Moab in a couple weeks and I've got a spare 530 you can use. Let me know if you're interested.

Slow rides to church. Check.

That's Saul!

OP- Congratulations! This brings back fond memories! I had one of these in 1976 and tore up the canyons around LA with it. It was quick and nimble and made a great noise! Wish I still had it! On the other hand, as I am no longer quick and nimble, I'd probably hurt myself on it!

Great find. Bought a new RD350 in 1974 and went two up from Toronto to Victoria BC and back. It was a fabulous summer. Put 18000 km on that 350 in six months and traded up to a 500 that fall. My ass was much tougher then. Enjoy the ringy ding ding.

Sent by Steal6 on Tapatalk

Whatta beautiful ring-a-ding-ding! God, I miss my RD...and my RZ... sigh...

Happy "recreational smoking" on your new RD, Saul.

Having fun with it. I've got it carbureting perfectly and have made a ton of small cosmetic and mechanical fixes. It had the dirtiest brake fluid I've ever seen. I think it may have been original!

I've finally gotten to ride it a bit, and the more I do the more I think I'll leave it stock. It's really fun to ride in stock form and it looks great, so why mess with it?Still leaves me plenty to do as far as restoration stuff goes.

Odd stuff: I've grown accustomed to working on Japanese bikes with only a certain range of wrench sizes and procedures. I guess the age of this one makes that stuff irrelevant. This bike has bolts with 16mm heads. I don't think I've ever used a 16mm socket on anything! I had to take the front wheel off to remove the brake caliper, and I had to let the air out of the tire to remove the wheel. Screwy.

Well before the days of "four wrench bikes"

I remember when engine cases used philips head...that's when I bought my first impact driver

Who got it carbureting perfectly?

I did.

More fiddling was needed.

Ironic thread titles for $100, Alex.



Anybody got a recommendation for vintage two stroke engine work on the Front Range? It appears that a bearing on my transmission shaft has failed. I do not want to split the cases.