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So my r5 engine works great until it fouls it's plugs, the thing has eaten four sets of plugs now. Once they're fouled they're garbage and no amount of cleaning will bring them back to life for more than a few minutes. I rode the bike on the highway at 60-70 mph this evening with no issues. Got home, looked at the plugs, and they're kinda oily and have a black electrode but not the plugs isn't totally black or anything. I put them back in, this is after a test ride where it didn't foul a plug and was still running fine, and it fouled the right side again, it seems to foul the right side over the left, it also will backfire through the carb and out the exhaust if it's beginning to fail.

Would this just be down to me needing to shotgun a new everything on the ignition system? I double-checked the timing and points gap and it's normal. I'm getting pretty tired of working on this bike, I thought I would finish the restoration and it would be fine with minor issues, not have 1000 problems. Everything in the ignition system is old/original. I was going to replace the points and condenser when I did the engine rebuild but economy cycle said they were out of stock on the parts and would send them when they were in stock, well that was three months ago, so I guess I need to buy points somewhere else.

With fresh plugs it starts up and runs strong and then seems to degrade quickly, it usually loses the right cylinder if you shut it off and then try and start it back up again after cooling down a bit. Although I have lost the left side as well and I have also lost while riding.

It's a little odd since I never had any ignition issues with the bike when it was on the road two years ago with its original engine. I've also only fouled one plug ever on one of these bikes prior to this. 

So I made a previous thread about this when I was putting the engine together, but didn't really get to the bottom of it. I decided to just put the thing together and see if it would work, since it was so hard to determine if it was working while the engine is on the bench. I have the bike all together now, and it only has two gears, it will go into first with difficulty and then into second again with difficulty, it makes a noise when I pull the clutch, I think the clutch must be rubbing on the inside of the case. I cannot get any gears beyond second even while riding the bike.

This mirrors my issues I had on the bench, obviously this is a disappointment since the engine runs great and this setback will most certainly mean the bike is not going to be finished before the snow falls this year.

The bikes looks nice at least?



Here are my photos of the transmission internals from before. Yes I did correct the star wheel before I assembled it. I used all the parts from a 1975 rd250 which was a working transmission.

So I'm reassembling the bottom end on my r5, I've swapped a 6 speed in to the cases because I have the parts lying around collecting dust. I wasn't able to find a lot of info about doing this, but it went on in there anyway. I put the cases back together and assembled most of the right side and of course I can't get it through the gears, it seems to shift into direct and then gets stuck, it will shift to neutral and then into half a gear? Maybe I need to have the clutch and other gears installed, but I would like to make sure this is going to work before I put it fully together. I looked at some photos of other transmissions on here, but I can't see any difference between mine and the photos. I guess I could just put the 5 speed back in.  Hopefully I'm just missing something obvious.

I figured I would make a project thread for this bike. I've gone through the trouble of filming the first episode of a YouTube series about fixing up this machine. So I figured I would post that: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zXx2B0xN538 here and I will also post photos in here. No idea if I will make subsequent videos since it was a bit annoying and there seems to be no interest in it,  I'm no Ken Burns.

I bought this bike about five years ago, it has been sitting forever and was missing parts, but I was able to get it up and running, and I did some work to it at that time to get it road safe and use it for I think one season? But sadly the engine failed one day and so the bike has been sitting for three years collecting bondo dust and leaking oil in the corner.



Plans are to make the bike as nice as I can make it before I get bored.

Since filming that video I have taken the front fork off the bike and stripped the frame, and it's associated parts and those things are now being powder coated (like I said, this bike is just for me, and it's going to be nice) and the cylinders are at the machine shop awaiting pistons.

I will be repainting the whole bike, including the tank and covered in the original stripes and colours.

This will most likely exceed the value of the bike 

I plan to fit some "sporty" accessories as I mentioned in the video, although it will be more for looks than actual performance. I have been looking at the "JL Street Retros" because they allow me to keep the stand, but I'm torn on whether to bother with them if they have no real performance benefit, as the stock exhaust is one of the few parts of this bike that is actually in excellent condition.

I have filmed the disassembly of the engine and will edit that video and post it this evening. If anyone has any comments about all the things I'm doing wrong, or sees any major concerns, feel free to mention it, and I'll attempt to correct it :

I've drained my old transmission oil out and started refilling it, it says 1500ccs on the side cover, but I've only put in a quart and the dipstick is saying it's grossly overfilled? Or am I reading the dipstick wrong?? I had fully drained the transmission.