R5 Rescue

[TreeFiddy]

Thanks for the add! Wanna document and share my attempt at rescuing a 1972 Yamaha R5 350. Have a quick rundown and will post more pics when I can.

Have been wanting a two stroke street bike since I fixed up an old shifty Vespa recently and found this one local to me for a good deal. Went out to the country and hauled this out of the brush on an old farm. Here's a summary of the condition and what I've done so far.

Front wheel locked up. Rear wheel barely moves. Chain virtually rust welded. No ignition switch. Seat pan rusted out. Air filter disintegrated and air box rusted out. All cables seized. Oil pump seized. No battery harness. No rear blinkers. Tires from the early 80s and shot. Mud, dirt, brush, cobwebs, dust from sitting for at least two decades in that field.

Went around whole bike unseizing stuff with WD40 and PBlaster.

Removed front wheel to unseize it so bike could be moved around. Brake shoes had delaminated and the pads were stuck to the drum still. Removed chain for ease of movement as well. Rear brake in similar condition. Cleaned wheels up and replaced tires, tubes et cetera.

Pulled heads and removed carbon build up from heads and dome of piston. Inspected bores and cleaned up.

Took carbs off, dismantled and cleaned in ultrasonic. Got rebuild kits and replaced gaskets, needle and fuel valves.

Made up a battery harness myself vs ordering and waiting. Got modern reg/rec. Hotwired the ignition. Bought battery. Bought new points. Bought dial gauge. Timed. Used premix since I assumed the oil pump was shot. Kicked and fiddled and kicked and adjusted and kicked.

Noticed exhaust baffles were plugged up so removed temporarily. Kicked and kicked.

Got used ignition switch and ordered a key based on code. Rebuilt ignition switch and rekeyed barrel to match key.

Horn, brake light and blinkers work. Blinkers don't blink and headlight doesn't work.

Kick and fiddle and kick and adjust and kick and kick.

Starts turning over intermittently.

Take a look at oil pump. Clean up in place and douse in WD40. Unseize and get it working. Realize the oil pump and premix is keeping it from firing. Swap out premix to straight uncut premium.

Kick and kick and adjust and fiddle and it finally starts and runs!

[m in sc]

nice.

bee leery of crank seals etc. they can be replaced w out splitting cases.

i have 2 r5s myself, fun for sure. and the fact a lot of rd stuff swaps, parts aren't bad. look forward to seeing what you do w this.

[Brad-Man]

When I was in college I ran into a guy from high school a class ahead of mine that had that same bike in 1975.  He let me rip around on it and in May 2975 I bought my new '75 RD350.

[TreeFiddy]

nice.

bee leery of crank seals etc. they can be replaced w out splitting cases.

i have 2 r5s myself, fun for sure. and the fact a lot of rd stuff swaps, parts aren't bad. look forward to seeing what you do w this.

Thanks! Yeah, the seals seem to be a nice perk of the R5. I just got them swapped with new ones. I also like that the R5 oil feed is in the cylinder so technically I can use any carb. Want to see how it rides before doing any swapping but at the very least I'd like to switch to a disc up front. Will see

[TreeFiddy]

When I was in college I ran into a guy from high school a class ahead of mine that had that same bike in 1975.  He let me rip around on it and in May 2975 I bought my new '75 RD350.

Ha! Nice! I can't wait to get it road worthy! I got the two stroke bug from a 63 Vespa I fixed up and subsequently super up as well.

[TreeFiddy]

This was the first start up mentioned in the first post. Have made more progress since then. Will be posting some photos to catch this up.

[The Red Scourge]

Looking forward to watching the progress!  I've wanted an R5 for a while.

[m in sc]

be aware to run a ft disc you need the wider rd  trees, there is a 10mm difference.  it all bolts on but then the gauges won't fit,  or the key witch.

i did this w my 72 but was a fair amount of fabricating to make it look 'stock' (if thats what you are going for)