rzresurection Posted February 12, 2014 Share Posted February 12, 2014 I have an '87 RZ350 that I've had since 1987. I have a long build thread on another forum, so I'm not going to repeat everything. Sorry, just too much to repeat the 35 pages that I've already typed in. I'm the second owner of the bike. The first owner of the bike was a squid that had no respect for motorcycling. I think he was pissed up when he side swiped a tree with the bike. I bought it as a partial basket case. The frame had a missing section (where the kickstand used to be). The engine didn't work - the stator and rotor were screwed. The front bodywork was all smashed. It was a mess. I didn't even know if the front of the frame was straight. I don't have any pics of the bike when I bought it. So, I found a place that could supply me with some TZ 250 (front fairing) and RS250 (solo seat). They repaired my frame. They also did the engine work. I got a quote for the stator/rotor from my Yammie dealer. I was able to buy a used engine (including stator/rotor for less than the price from the dealer. I now have almost a complete spare to this day. Here are some pics of what it looked like when I got it on the road in '88 I'll post more of the story. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
feliks Posted February 12, 2014 Share Posted February 12, 2014 Bout time you posted this up here! Looks like lots of fun back in the day and will be even more when you finally get it back on the road after all this work you're putting into it! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rzresurection Posted February 12, 2014 Author Share Posted February 12, 2014 It was a blast back then. It was especially cool when 4 or 5 of us (2T's) took off from a stop light. It was like the start of a proper Grand Prix. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rzresurection Posted February 12, 2014 Author Share Posted February 12, 2014 I rode it for a while and decided to change the paint scheme a little Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rzresurection Posted February 12, 2014 Author Share Posted February 12, 2014 I rode it regularly until I went to Ryerson University in Toronto. I lived right downtown Church/Gerrard. I brought it to the place that I lived a couple of times. It was crazy riding in TO. Waaaay to much traffic for my comfort zone on a bike. I ended up parking it in front of my building one night. I came out the next morning to find that some dick head had kicked it over. Broke my wind screen, smashed some of the fiberglass bodywork. I had to put some 100mph tape (duct tape) on the screen to keep it together. After that ordeal, it never came back to school with me. I just rode it during the summers (when I could afford the insurance). At some point I had decided that my girl needed a top end rebuild. I rounded up the money to rebore the jugs, new pistons, rings, gaskets and all that other stuff. I sanded down the body work and decided to change the color to fluorescent orange. Bad move on so many different levels. I f*cked it all up. I used some shitty paint that didn't work. It thickened up. It wasn't anything short of a disaster. So, I have a bike that looks like shite and then my new top end decided to detonate. The whole top end melted down while I was on the highway. The temp gauge kept pegging. The power dropped off. I finally pulled in the clutch and guided it over to the shoulder of the fast lane. The whole engine locked up. I pushed it into the tall grass in the ditch between the east and west bound lanes of the 403. The buddy i was riding with, gave me a ride back home. We arrived back at the 'suicide scene' 1/2 hr later with dads pickup. Loaded her in the back, home she went to my parents shed where she stood in a coma on her centre stand for many a year. My mom ragged on me every year to get rid of the damn thing. She threatened me that she was going to take it to the scrap yard. She even said that she had a buyer lined up for it at some point. 'Yeah, whatever mom' was my usual response. My game plan was to keep her at bay until I had my own house with a garage. That day is coming ..... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rzresurection Posted February 12, 2014 Author Share Posted February 12, 2014 Fast forward to 2002. I'm married and now have my own house with a garage. My bike has a new home, but honestly I don't have any interest in touching it yet. This house business is interesting. Lots of new carpentry, plumbing, tiling skills to be acquired. Time to build some equity into my new place. My bike gets moved around the garage on a weekly basis to make room for wood trim, table saws and anything that is home improvement related. The bike is the lowest item on the priority list. At one point I lose a bit of personal sanity. I do a garage clean and throw out bike parts. I threw out my seat, some original body work. What the hell was I thinking. my bike just wasn't all that important at that point. Once kids came along, it was pushed farther down the priority list, with me being just above it. Again, I was at the point where I was toying with the thought of getting rid of my bike. Somehow, I still couldn't bare to part with it. I've just had it too effin long. Here's what it looked like in 2004 while it was getting moved around the garage. LOL Forward a few years again - to 2006. I'm not 'in to' bikes, but I still like them. It's always in your blood. I pick up a bike magazine and what do I see. An article on Jamie James RZ. Now that freaking cool. An old bike with a modern twist - new suspension, big tires. You 2 stroke guys have all seen it. Now that was an inspirational bike. That's the bike that woke the sleeping giant. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rzresurection Posted February 12, 2014 Author Share Posted February 12, 2014 Ok, it's 2006 and I have a huge chubber after seeing the first Jamie James bike. That's the kind of bike that I've always wanted mine to be. It's more or less an RZ all juiced up on dbol and finaplex. I knew that I wanted something similar, but hadn't a clue on how to go about it. I had an old broken down RZ. Atleast I had a bike that I've (virtually) owned from day one. From this point going forward, the PO blame game excuse card is non existent. What do I want my bike to look like, what parts do I use? Holy shite, waaaay to many unknowns and choices at this point. One of the hardest parts of the build is to have a real vision of what you want the end result to be. It was really hard, so I just winged it. Really, I loved what JJ did with his bike, so I tried to more or less emulate his setup with what I had and a lot of new parts. The biggest thing for me was having that 180 back tire. This was the inspirational bike Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rzresurection Posted February 12, 2014 Author Share Posted February 12, 2014 Sorry boys, I'm doing a bit of a cut/paste job from my build on the other forum. Just wanted to give you some history on my journey. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
feliks Posted February 12, 2014 Share Posted February 12, 2014 Haha I enjoyed the read! I must have missed this on the other forum... that bike has been through a lot! So what's next... painting the engine, finishing body work, and installing signals? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rzresurection Posted February 12, 2014 Author Share Posted February 12, 2014 Stay tuned. More details and pics to come. Lol I posted this on the RD/RZ forum. Where I've been a registered member for 8 yrs. About the same length of time as I've been at this build. Sad. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Noise Posted February 12, 2014 Share Posted February 12, 2014 Cracking read so far man! Im watching/reading this one Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rzresurection Posted February 12, 2014 Author Share Posted February 12, 2014 Thanks Noise. It is a story/journey. It's almost like an on-off love affair. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rzresurection Posted February 12, 2014 Author Share Posted February 12, 2014 I've read all the threads on RZ forum regarding the 180 rear tire debate. For me, I really didn't give a sh@t. It was a no debate for me. Go big or go home. I also knew that this was going to be a whole whack of work, which will also require a bunch of $$ and people (other than me) to help me. I really like the idea of having the updated front suspension i.e. USD R1 forks. Its cool to think i could have some semi-modern Yamaha engineering on my old RZ. Wouldn't the old girl just love that. The next logical extension of that comment is 'what's the point of having updated front suspension and have that old crappy stocker on the back?' Yes, R6 rear shock seemed to be the ticket...lots of info available on that conversion. Seemed more or less a no brainer. I'm now scouring eBay for R1 USD forks and some rims that might work as well. What rims do i go with? R1? R6? rims. Honda, Suzuki? So many freaking unknowns. My general thought was to stick with Yamaha. Maybe things would be relatively standard. I could only hope. I just wanted something that would work without me wasting hundreds of $$ trying to figure out that it wasn't going to. The first possible piece of the puzzle that appeared on fleabay were the rims. A spare set of R6, race day rims. No dings, no dents, and some flaking paint. Can't remember the price, but they must have been reasonable cause I snapped those bad boys up. I think a couple hundred bucks. The rears included cush and rubbers. The front included rotors. I know - what a bitchin deal. The next ting to fall into place was the R1 USD forks. I bought some used, gold, one slightly bent,pair of forks. Ok that was a complete waste of time and $$. They're still sitting in the attic of my garage. Maybe good for guts for someone. The search is still on. Found a nice pair of '02 R1, black, USD, no leaks and STRAIGHT units with upper and lower triples to boot. Can't remember the price. I thought they were reasonable. My wife's opinion would differ. I only say that based on the sh!t fit she threw over the price. This is the point that where my intent to get this 'donor cycle' (as she so lovingly calls it) was starting to materialize. That's a completely different thread. I'm not going to pollute this one with that nastyness. When I bought the R1 forks, I wasn't 100% confident that the R6 rims were gonna fit. That was a bit of a gamble. Ended up fitting perfect. Got hold of an axle and nut. VIOLA - I HAVE FRONT END (just watched Castaway recently LOL). That was a huge relief and I had a major win under my belt. I'm all about 'I can do this' Still hadn't figured what swinger to use. How to pull this whole new (to me) big tire, back end upgrade together??? There wasn't a lot of concrete info available on a proven method to go about this. I'm pretty much on my own. There are a few people out there who have done this and I did grill them for any info. I could squeeze out. I wanted one that was Alum (light weight), relative period correct if possible, not a lot of machining and/or welding required, something that would hold a 180 rear tire - oh, and was really cheap. This was a budget build you know. Yeah, if I had a buck for every time I heard that on these forums, my bike would have been finished years ago AND it would have been paid for by all you dreamers. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rzresurection Posted February 12, 2014 Author Share Posted February 12, 2014 My first attempt to acquire a possible swinger was a 2000 R6. Found one for $10 on eBay. Aluminum yes, period correct no, cheap yes. When i received it, I looked at the linkage on it and it seemed that it would be a lot of fussing to get it to work. I wasn't sure about it, but figured I'd keep this in my back pocket and continue looking. Next swinger that I was eyeing for trial was an 84 FJ1100. Found one on eBay (of course) for cheap. I asked the seller for some dim's and was able to determine that it just might work. The linkage didn't look exactly like the double dog-bone style, but it worked the same way. I think I had a winner. For a few bucks more, the seller threw in the section of frame where the swingarm attached. This way I had something tangible to see the fit up. Now, how do I get this thing into my frame? This point in time/my build is one of those moments where the pressure to progress outweighs common sense. I measure up the frame width where the swinger would fit and start hacking the swinger down to fit. I hadn't really considered where the chain location would fall. Gonna pay for that short-sighted move later on. Gonna throw some pics into the mix here. So far too many words, not enough pics. Some old pictures Before I started any structural mods. I was staring to cut the tail to get the lines that I wanted. In this pic I had cut one side, but not the other. The tear down The new front end - R6 rim with R1 USD forks I tried the R6 swinger first - had to see what it looked like The FJ1000 swinger with R6 rim. Look at that 180 tire The FJ Mono shock linkage in the frame. Pretty freakin beefy linkage. Lets put it together. It kinda looks like the FZ600 swingarm the lots of the guys use on RZ upgrades. More later. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sniff6 Posted February 12, 2014 Share Posted February 12, 2014 Bloody hell just getting into this. Have you got a link to this project on the RZ site?? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rzresurection Posted February 12, 2014 Author Share Posted February 12, 2014 I was hoping someone was gonna ask for the link. I thought I might have to re type the whole build in again. Lol Here's the link. For some reason I can't get it to link properly. You might have to cutnpaste http://www.rzrd500.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=10393 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rzresurection Posted February 12, 2014 Author Share Posted February 12, 2014 Link looks good. Effin eh! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
blackhat250 Posted February 12, 2014 Share Posted February 12, 2014 Great story as well as the build. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sniff6 Posted February 12, 2014 Share Posted February 12, 2014 Link works just fine rz thanks Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rzresurection Posted February 13, 2014 Author Share Posted February 13, 2014 Great story as well as the build. Thanks BH. It's been a long journey - still not done yet. Too many obstacles been thrown in my path lately. It'll be a one of a kind when done. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts