Messages

anybody knows a good exhaust restoration shop in florida?

i need to clean, remove dings, and rechrome the original pipes

Have you considered ceramic chrome coating a lot cheaper, I know a couple of good shops in central FL that do that. Chromer will charge big $ just to clean inside of used pipes to avoid contaminating their tanks, before the big $ to chrome.

yes i thought about it, there is a cerakote dealer that can cote it here in colombia, but i would rather chromme them.

when i get to that point i´l make the desicion.

any sugestions how to clean 40 year old carbon deposits?

If you want to pay the postage;

Buy a pair of GRA2stroke pipes. One of the best RD400 street pipes available.
Ship them to me. I'll modify them for a 3J7 and send them to your sister.

hey jim how are you?... i tried reaching you by email a year ago.

you sent me the original 2r9 pipes and headers, which are in good condition. but need a little work. 

some dings need to be removed.  and they have to be rechrommed. when you sent them to me i should have left them in miami. so they could be rebuilt in the USA.

i have them here in Colombia, but i dont trust any of the shops here to touch them.

i bet they would work like they are. but i have to make this bike justice and restore the pipes.


i´m looking for a good shop on Florida than can clean them (i could probably do this and save $$), remove old paint (they are painted over in black) remove old chromme (i could probably do this too), then rechromme them with a cooper-nickel-chromme process.

so if anybody knows let me know.

Gary Braun builds very nice pipes  612-913-2411  tell him Rich  from richstaylordporting sent you

Rich

yes i chatted with him, he could custom make the pipes, but at arround 1200usd, i think they are overkill for my future use.

i bet they are worth the money, but he specializes on racebikes. his instagram shows his work, check it out, good stuff.

Spec2 and GRA2strokes build great pipes for RD400E/F/G

http://gra2strokes.com/

thanks i already sent them an email. waiting for their response to see if they can adapt their pipes to my rd.

i have the original 2r9 pipes and headers for my rd400g.

which is the same as the uk rd400e. but looks like a daytona.

i need to restore the pipes, or buy new aftermaket pipes.

the bike is used in the street, so no race pipes

jim lomas pipes wont fit this bike, DG i have heard are not that good.

where can i have my pipes rebuild, (remove dents and rechrome)?

where can i find good aftermarket pipes?

does anybody have a blueprint for pipes?

there used to be a thread for wanted items.

i have 2r9 carburators for my rd400g,  i had chuck quenzler, rebuild them, they are great but i still need one of the 5j6 needles.

i have not been able to find them.

can anyone help with this

[^As I read on the forum, the tang In the middle was removed and almost 2mm from the bottom also. Here you can compare both pistons side by side with the pin inserted. Everything below the red lines was removed.]

I remembered chuck mentioned that i had to remove the middle piece on the piston - Could you maybe explain why?
I remember it was something to do that the piston was for a rd350lc?

Iam currently Looking for a milling head to remove the alu to make room for my v force reeds, Hopefully i Will get it done soon. Then i can get the cylinders bored and honed and mounted on the engine 

Stay tuned

i did the same on mine (removal of the tang on the piston) or you run the risk of this breaking off against the ports and causing mayor damage.
+ 2 mm of the side skirts (using rz350 yamaha pistons on rd400f). this is because if you fit this pistons normaly....  it would hit the counterweights on the crankshaft.


^As I read on the forum, the tang In the middle was removed and almost 2mm from the bottom also.
Here you can compare both pistons side by side with the pin inserted. Everything below the red lines was removed.



otherwise the piston skirts

[▲this is what was mainly needed]

As you can tell form the first posts... the bike was missing some really important parts... and restoring it to it´s original condition was going to take a lot of $$$ pesos.

Specially since I was missing carbs, covers, seat and many other rare and expensive parts.
I started exchanging emails with Jim Emigh from Canada (bitzz in the forum... great guy, so
helpfull), he was the one who sold me the 2r9 cylinders. They race these bikes over there so they
have lots of spares that are not used in racing. I sent him a picture of what I was missing and a list
of parts.


▲this is what was mainly needed

▼THIS IS THE SECOND BATCH OF PARTS I GOT FROM HIM, first were the cylinders. And this is what I got:▼


▲The original wire loom with the cdi ignition: will have to be sorted and tested, but in overall great
condition.... Later I had this cdi and the one I got with the bike (had the wires cut), tested by a
specialist, they are in working condition.


▲Tail piece section with rail and wiring, grommets in good condition.



▲This was the holy grail, as the rear cowl and seat era rare, and way too expensive, the pan is
rusted in some areas, but can be fixed. The foam is pretty bad, but it will help in making a new
one, as there are some pretty good upholstery shops here that can do a perfect job.


▲A great left cover, not broken, just needs paint.


▲I got the original controls, which have to be restored, two front headlights, the front mudguard,
the oil tank in awesome condition, and another rare item: the tool kit.



▼WE KEPT IN TOUCH AND SOME TIME LATER I BOUGHT THIS THIRD BATCH FROM HIM:▼



▲the rare 2r9 carbs... I cleaned them up with carb cleaner, but could use an ultrasonic cleaning.


▲rear brake.


▲this really helped out a lot as getting this combo with a working key is also expensive.


▲control switches


▲the short version handlebar. I still don´t know if it´s original, all bikes I have seen have a bigger one


▲the kick starter and shifters, the ones I had were not from the bike.



▲last but not least the 2r9 exhausts, there are some dents, the chrome is really bad, and they had
been painted over in black,  i´m having a hard time finding someone who can rechrome these
exhausts here in Colombia, I read the process is different to regular chroming ...  otherwise the
heat will peal it away.
I will keep looking,  In the meantime I might paint them black, until I find the right shop that does
this.  Later I might fit aftermarket chambers...  but  this is another problem, I have seen many
aftermarket chambers for the DAYTONA and the 1A1 rd´s.  but no one seems to have them
available for the rd400g or the brit rd400E (to my knowledge both this bikes use the same
mounting points on the frame).

In the future i would love to get something like jim lomas or  hvc chambers. But they don´t have them for this bike...  would hate to purchase this expensive exhausts only to have to weld on top of them or on the frame for new mounting points.

Maybe someone who has fitted chambers to a rd400g or rd400e can let me know where to find them.

Jim said he would email me the plans for some street exhausts, I know I can have them made here,
As there are various shops doing race chambers for two strokes. In colombia two stroke engines
were permitted until at least 2006.

I want to thank Jim, he really gave me I great price, even with shipping parts from Canada to Miami then to Colombia, I don´t think I could have gotten a better deal on this parts.

All in all I paid jim us$398 for the 2r9 cylinders

for the second batch of parts I paid us$283 (cover, seat, cowl, etc..)

for the third I paid $200 (carbs, exhaust etc..)

everything with shipping to miami

This is the point when I decided to restore the bike, so no café racer or scrambler out of this.

From now on It will be a full on restomod.  I want the vintage look of the bike, upgrade the brake
lines, tires and suspension to current standards.

[^I won´t paint them untill i have everything i need for this project.]

I have not fixed my crank problems yet.... Still trying to figure out what to do.

Besides this, as I posted before, all three pairs of cylinders  were extremely overbored to
66mm, so there was no saving them.

Started looking for either 1a1 or preferably the more scarce 2r9 cylinders on the forum and ebay.

After a while i found a pair of 2r9 cylinders from canada that would have to be bored to 0.50.

There seems to be a good supply of 2r9 parts in Canada, as my rd400g is the same as the ones that
were sold over there.

So he shipped them to Miami....  I did from Miami to Colombia.






^I won´t paint them untill i have everything i need for this project.



^They are in overall good condition, there is a repair on one of the exhaust studs, but it it looks pretty solid to me.



^The exhaust ports are a little scratched...   can this be fixed by simple wet sanding to smooth them out?
Let me know on the comments please


^Intakes are good

I purchased 0.50 rz350 pistons






^As I read on the forum the tang In the middle was removed and almost 2mm from the bottom also.
Here you can compare both pistons side by side with the pin inserted. Everything below the red lines was removed.

[Next was the 3j7 cylinder heads]

Next was the 3j7 cylinder heads

I have three of them. but as you can see in the pictures the best
one was full of pits. Probably piston ring damage... who knows what got in there.





Again, nobody here knew how to fix the heads, but after the crank experience I was not going to
let anybody without experience touch my cylinder heads.

A year ago, a friend of mine was traveling to Miami, I took the opportunity and he took the
cylinder heads with him and shipped it to chuck Quenzler.

He fixed the squish band and shipped it back to Miami to my forwarder.


▲Here you can see how he split the heads, as you probably all know this has to be done on the 3j7
and 2vo heads so they can spin freely on the lathe.

▼I have been sanding them with 200, 320, 500, 600, 700, al the way up to 2000 wet sand paper to get
them nice and shiny, the one on the left still has a few numbers to go trough






I had learned from ed erlenbach´s webpage the following:

"The cylinders and heads from a 1A1 will fit all years, as long as they are swapped as a complete
set, along with the exhaust pipes. The cylinders, head and head gasket for the 2V0 are unique. The
cylinders for the 3J7, 3M4 and 2R9 are the same. The 2R9 had separate cylinder heads and the 3J7
and 3M4 had a one piece head, they should be interchangeable. The 2R9 had separate head
gaskets and the 3J7 and 3M4 had a one piece head gasket, but 2R9, 3J7 and 3M4 have the same
gasket thickness, so you could use the separate gaskets on the Canadian and Oceana Daytonas."

So in the future If need be I can always use the 1a1 cylinder heads which are more common, but chuck
did a great job so i don´t think i will have any problems

If you want a crank rebuilt in the US, check out Team Scream in the vendor section of the forum. Chuck is in Clearwater I think, which would be 4 hours or so from Boca. Super nice guy and an expert at what he does.

Nice build by the way, I'm interested to see your progress.

chuck just rebuilt my crank..  i have been posting in chronological order, everything that has been done with the bike... 

you will see it at a later post

regards

[▼Crank from 1a1 engine]

After dissembling all three engines, I noticed the crankshaft of the 1a1 to be almost the same as
the other two 3m4 crankshafts. this engine also had a stator and cdi installed, so the history of this
1a1 bike is really vague, it has 3m4 parts including the 3j7 cylinder head. But if in fact it is a 3m4
crank installed, I have three possible crankshafts to rebuilt so this is good for me.

▼Crank from 1a1 engine




▼3m4 main engine crank



▼3m4 second engine crank




I bought this off of ebay US:

-Original rz350 pistons (removed the middle tang, and took 2mm off the lower skirt) as instructed in the forum.

-Prox con rods

-Yamaha piston pins and circlips

-All the crank bearings from NTN dealer her in Colombia

I´ve been having trouble finding somebody that knows how to rebuild this crankshafts here in
Colombia. I have talked and visited some shops, that supposedly do this. But when asked, they
have never done a multicylinder pressed crankshaft, they look at me as if I was showing them
nuclear physics and in disbelief that something like this ever existed. The ones that said they could
do it....  I don´t trust, as they have no experience doing it. They have only worked on single cylinder
pressed cranks like the ones on the rx115 and 135´s that are all over Colombia.


Hell.... it is very frustrating....  I found a person who build race cars, and talking to him, he new the
process and had the equipment to rebuild the crankshaft and said he had rebuilt a kawasaki h2
crank back in the 90´s. he is the only one I could trust so far, so I gave it to him.

He rebuilt the crankshaft, sent me videos of how he was doing it.  I have measured it and seems
fine. But I'm still not 100% convinced that he did a good job. he charged me $90 for the job but I
think this went down the drain. This will have to do for now...  i´m still looking for someone who
can double check it who knows what he´s doing locally. 

If I don´t find anybody, I'm going to have to ship it to the US $$$ and have it done by someone
with the expertise. (shipping things from Colombia to the US is extremely expensive. Shipping from
the US to Colombia is relatively inexpensive).

I have the "rebuilt crank" with new bearings and rods. My mother is visiting my sister who lives in
Boca Raton, Florida on December 26th.  If some of you know who could rebuilt it at a fair price let
me know. I could have my sister ship the crank. It will be expensive to get it back here because of
the weight, but I can save on the shipping to the US by sending it with my mother (oh she´s gonna
be thrilled with the added weight on her suit case). But this is probably the must crucial part of the
bike.

[^Now I had three engines]

Engine disassembly

By now I came across another rd400g, the guy was selling a complete 3m4 engine (with the
missing stator cover), forks with triple tree for $180. So I bought it. (Wouldn't ´t hurt to have spare
parts at that price)




^Now I had three engines

I took the engine out of the 3m4 frame, split the cases with a rubber mallet knowing that I would
have to do a complete engine rebuild.

I did the same thing with the other 2 engines.

To my surprise the pistons were not seized, but I measured all 3 pairs of cylinders and they were
all 66mm and had been fitted with Yamaha dt175 pistons....  Apparently the pistons were hard to
find and the stupidest thing they all did (in my opinion) was overbore all cylinders to fit the dt175
pistons.

So 1 problem on top of the other, I had to add cylinders to the list as this ones were pretty much
useless.

After fully disassembling the 3m4 engine...  I could see all the problems with this cases, one of the
engine mounts was broken on both sides as I knew from before.




^On the stator side the threads were broken and rough.

So first things first I cleaned the cases as much as I could and sent them to get fixed.

They came back like this:




^He fixed the mounts, he did a pretty good job I think, let´s hope it holds up.


^This was on the kick start side, now fixed.




^There was a small fissure on the kickstarter "holder". He fixed that also. This is a high stress point,
so hopefully it was properly fixed. I remember he said the aluminum cases of the era are "shit"
and are hard to work on. He spent some time doing the best he could.


^The stator side was also corrected and treaded properly for the bolts that hold the stator plate.

The welder is a great guy, and experienced, he had a whole bunch of written off modern superbike
frames, and showed me how he was welding them back together.

All this welding work he charged me $80

[started to list what I had that could be restored:]

I had started to take the bike apart, by now I had read more about the bike, and started to worry a little.
It was more a matter of not what I needed to complete it.... But what was missing from the bike...
it was easier to count what I really had... and I had not even taken the engines apart yet.

So, I got a hold of an rd400g manual on pdf, printed it, and started highlighting what I had. And storing everything on numbered plastic containers.

Also got the parts manuals for the uk rd400E, Daytona special, 76-78 rd´s. I had to know what parts could be swapped from all 3 models (76-78, Daytona special, uk rd400e)


started to list what I had that could be restored:

Matching numbers frame and engine (missing stator cover)
Swingarm
Fuel tank
Forks and triple clamp
Wheels
Brake calipers
Brake discs
Axles
Headlight bucket


What I had that was probably shot beyond repair:

Cables
Carbs
Front and rear master cylinder
Sprockets
Chain
loom

Important parts missing for a restoration:

Seat with foam and cover
Rear cowl
Side covers
Airbox
Carbs (2r9)
multitude of rubbers
pretty much all the original hardware
tool box
rear shocks
clocks and hardware to bolt
exhaust and downpipes (2r9)
kickstarter
center stand
front and rear fender
battery box
oil tank
handle bar
turn signals
tail light
main switch and all the electronics
everything else not listed here

by now tears came flowing from my left eye.
Was starting to think that even if the bike had been given to me for free, it is not going be cheap.
But hey.... This is what I wanted, a full on project.