YAMAHA RZV500R
Down Under digger Jeff Ware returns with this stroker!
With the bike stripped to a bare frame, the first thing to do was give the frame a good detail. Tim used wax and grease remover, metal polish and elbow grease to hand clean the frame back to mint original look. Thirty-five years of road grime came off and it came up lovely. He then fitted new steering-head bearings, polished and painted the lower and upper triple-trees (yokes to you Poms), fitted an ignition switch sticker and wire-wheeled the bolts while I started on the fork seals.
The swingarm got a similar treatment, with all bearings and seals replaced where needed and or cleaned and re-packed with waterproof grease. The shock was stripped externally, cleaned, the spring painted and then it was all assembled up along with the forks, which got new seals and oil and a good clean out – including the anti-dive.
Lots of time-consuming stuff came next, hours on the wire wheel cleaning OEM fasteners and springs, renewing the foot-pegs and carriers, side-stand, horn, radiator, any chassis parts really.
Basically, every single nut, bolt, washer and part have been cleaned back to new, including the gear-lever set up, rear brake lever, etc. In the end the chassis looked as good as new, thanks to Tim’s hard work and fussy nature.
The top fairing bracket and rear sub-frame tail-light brackets were cleaned, sanded, straightened and painted black; the actual sub-frame was repainted original silver.
With the heat and the fires, I really didn’t feel that much like drinking beer in the hot shed while I worked on the RZV during the holiday period, so I drank in the house mostly, except in the mornings when it was cooler. By the way, some of you may feel I drink too much beer, but it isn’t true. I only ever drink beer when I’m with other people, or when I am on my own… Ha!
Constantly walking out of the shed and jumping in my pool was the normal routine over Xmas, but I still enjoyed my time on the RZV project and I’m glad we are lucky enough to have a pool, particularly when it is 43ºc outside and 50ºc in the shed…
With all of the chassis parts done, including the brake rotors (discs in Pommie speak), it was time to tackle the nightmare we had been avoiding – the spaghetti wiring loom.
It had 35 years of crazed Japanese modifications to it and was a huge job. Tim spent a good few days solid on it, getting it back to exactly what the OEM wiring diagram shows, including the correct routing of it, which is crucial on these overly complicated bikes. The lights, dash and controls were completely stripped and cleaned, then fitted and the wheels arrived, looking great, thanks to Phil G, so new bearings went in and the discs on, ready to be fitted at a later stage.
All up, the bloody chassis ended up a three-week job, but the effort was worth it. Most of it won’t be visible, but it is nice to know everything was done properly.
We cracked a beer at the end and got Chappy round to check it out. He bought me a case of Mid Strength beer, but I’ll get him back for that another time…
We sat the chassis aside and used the main bench to build the engine, which as you will see next time was a huge job, but went smoothly! Cheers!