1984 Yamaha Gray Ghost RZ350 And So It Begins

[Kawtriplefreak]

I like big brakes and I cannot lie Courtesy of Evans Ward. Beautiful work as always.

[Kawtriplefreak]

Then I wrestled the new upper steel braided brake line into submission. Thank you John at Economy Cycle !

[Kawtriplefreak]

A new throttle tube arrived in 3 days from Merry Old England thanks to Yambits 

[85RZwade]

I broke my RZ throttle tube in a similar fashion when I wrecked the bike in 1990-ish. I was young, dumb and poor, so I sanded the inside of the tube and grip and kept it lubed with a little Vaseline for years. One day, my brain finally developed and I wondered WTF was I doing?? Broke down and spent the $8 or whatever for a new tube (and grips), and put the Vaseline away.

[Kawtriplefreak]

Frank B came over yesterday and we spent 4 hours wrenching and got quite a bit accomplished. You are the best Frank

The water pump rebuild went well. I cleaned up parts and hardware. Frank did the disassembly and reassembly. The water pump screws were rusty. I took the wire wheel on the bench grinder to them and we put just a touch of anti-seize on them going back together. The bearings felt fine but we changed them as they are part of the kit, along with the seal and a new gasket. The impeller shaft had a little wear dimple on it and I dressed it with a piece of crocus cloth. We changed the kicker seal as well and replaced the coolant pipe o-ring and snap ring too. A close inspection of all the threaded holes in the side cover revealed that all but two had heli-coils in them from some previous hamfistedness. I discovered this the hard way when I attempted to run a tap in a hole right above the kicker that had a buggered up screw end on it when it came out. Of course the tap brought the heli-coil out with it. Luckily I have a 6MM 1.0 heli-coil kit on hand and in a few minutes Frank made it right as rain. We had to scrounge through my spare Allen head bolts after we found more than 1 of the previously installed clutch cover bolts were only hanging on by a thread or two. We shortened some longer bolts out of my hardware pile and the clutch cover went on without further incident.

[Kawtriplefreak]

Next we decided to attack the grinding power valve servo motor, which worked but sounded horrific. 1st we tried to take it apart to clean and re-grease per M in SC but the torx head in the shaft screw that we need out to get the pulley off to access the guts was frozen solid even after liberal doses of PB Blaster and cussing, it was no Bueno. We then installed my eBay spare and rigged the cables and another problem was solved. 
The power valves open and close and no more grinding was noted.

[Kawtriplefreak]

Frank B departed and I still had a little play time left so I devoted that to a rather strange electrical issue. I hate electrical gremlins. The taillights at 1st glance appeared to work correctly. But... squeeze the brake lever or step on the rear brake, the LH taillight would go out and no brake light on that side either. I changed bulbs, swapped bulbs no good. I got my test light out and probed the wires and bulb contacts and it all worked. Then I put the probe on the socket itself which is supposed to be ground and the test light illuminated. I pushed both hot wires up out of the socket and inspected them. No damage was apparent. I called M in SC and we pretty much came to the conclusion that the LH socket was bad. Play time was over so I had to spend the remainder of the evening with the Bridal Unit. I looked for a replacement taillight harness on line to no avail except for one that came with a used taillight assembly on eBay with a cracked lens that a guy wanted $50 for plus shipping. M in SC said TZR 250 is the same and Yambits has a TZR 250 harness that shows it supercedes the RZ part number that is NLA. M in SC also told me that a lot of Japanese stuff uses similar all plastic sockets during our conversation so that got me to thinking. This morning after chores I went to my 01 Subaru Outback parts car armed with a pair of cutting pliers and lo and behold a three wire plastic socket . It looked exactly the same but wouldn't lock in to the taillight lens. A closer inspection revealed the locking ears were ever so slightly thicker than the Yamaha socket. About two minutes of careful trimming and it fit perfectly. The locking ear location and orientation are identical. It is the gray one in the picture and the ears had not yet been trimmed and the wires were just twisted together for testing. I wired it up and installed some heat shrink and it works like a champ. Thanks again Frank B and M in SC

[Mgmark]

Great job fixing the little stuff Tim! As these bike get older we end up using whatever is at hand to replace broken or missing parts. I can't tell you how many allen bolts I've made out my stock of long bolts purchased in bulk.

Mark

[Kawtriplefreak]

Thanks Mark! It is coming along. I still have a lot to do. Next I will clean up the chamber spigots and install them with new gaskets then mount my R6 cooling fan and wire it up, the new hoses and radiator back on. Then replace the intakes and on from there to the forks and finally the gas tank clean out and Caswell sealing and tires installation. I try to do a little something every day and spend one day of my weekend every week as time permits. The goal is to have it ready for the Gap.

[kpke]

I see you have a case of the previous owner blues. Amazing the stuff we find on our little treasures.

Moving along nicely Tim.

[m in sc]

Looking good. 

when you guys doing the gauge install? 

[Kawtriplefreak]

A few more weeks.

[Kawtriplefreak]

I got shipping confirmation and a tracking number yesterday from NK Racing for my R1 caliper brackets. They will be here in a few days.

[Kawtriplefreak]

3 days from the UK to VA. They fit perfectly.

[Mgmark]

Nice parts. You're making progress.