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Took the old battery to O'Reilly's Auto Parts and got a new one. Installed it. Fired on the 1st kick. Warmed it up and checked the charging system. 14.5 with no lights on. 13.1 with all lights on  brake applied and turn signals on.
Roads were wet so no test ride today. Then I put the Gray Ghost RZ on the lift for Zeeltronic ignition  installation.

I was excited to take advantage of the weather yesterday and finally test ride my RD after the fork ears headlight bucket change. Fired on the 2nd kick. Warmed it up and took off down the road. Came to the 1st intersection put on the right turn signal and the motor died shortly thereafter. I was about a half mile from home. No lights. Very dim neutral light with kill switch off. I got my aerobics in on the 1/2 mile push of shame back to the shop.
Got my meter out and read a lovely 5.4 volts of battery voltage. I charged the battery for 10 minutes and had 12.5 volts. 1st sign indicator that something was amiss. Cranked it up. Checked the charging system 14.7 volts. Headlight on turn signals on motor dies. Interesting parallel to the white RZ except it kept running of course since it is CDI. Battery voltage again 5 volts. Battery is 4 years old so it will get replaced today. Did a final test to confirm by running bike with charger hooked up briefly and it runs and idles perfectly with lights and turn signals on with brake lever pulled as long as it is hooked to the charger.
In other news the white RZ test ride with the new battery was flawless.


 

Damn
Sorry to hear that

Sounds Great!!!!

Thank you!!

Took the white 84 RZ350 out for the 1st time in three months. Noticed the instrument lights on the Koso flickering and turn signals coming on but not flashing. Switched to the voltage screen. Read 9.6 so I took it back to the shop. The 8 year old Moto-Batt battery showed a full charge after only 10 minutes on the trickle charger but dropped to 9 volts as soon as the ignition was turned on. I went to O'Reillys auto parts and got a slightly shorter slightly wider power sport battery like I put in the Gray Ghost RZ. 12.75 volts, jumped to 13.6 when I blipped the throttle. I filled in the space in the battery box with some foam and all is well again. I got my money's worth out of that one. It has been in there since the bike was built...

Thanks!!

After pulling the grommets and mount blocks out of a spare headlight bucket I did a quick measurement and marked and cut an 18MM square hole in my new bucket to enable me to use the factory Yamaha mounts.



Assembly was much easier and I managed to get it back together without buggering up my newly painted pieces. I drew out the square with a sharpie and used a small dremel cutting wheel.

51 days till Deals Gap 2024.  

75 and sunny today in Front Royal so I stopped by O'Reillys and grabbed a can of Duplicolor Ceramic 500 degree engine enamel and took advantage of the beautiful day before work.

I have used VHT and Duplicolor. Both are good.

LH headlight ear cracked. RH side of headlight bucket cracked at the mount hole. Luckily I have a spare ear and new repro bucket from John at Economy Cycle bought last year because one of the mount tabs on the rim broke. I will do a better job with isolation this iteration.
Disassembly was straightforward.


About 20 minutes in the bead blaster and the old paint on the ears plus the new shiny black on the bucket are gone.

 
Put on some rubber gloves to keep my greasy paw prints off of the freshly bead blasted parts and shot a nice coat of Rustoleum's finest etching primer. I hope to paint them on Saturday with good old Chevy orange 500 degree engine enamel.

Very cool!!!

Re fuel starvation.
 Took it out and flogged it pretty hard today and it runs much better.We are gonna call if fixed. Back up on the lift so I can pull the cracked headlight ears off and replace them and repaint the headlight bucket.