I just rebuilt and refurbished one of the RZ350’s. New top end, new brakes, tires, jet kit… ready to scream! But I had old ratty bodywork on it and a dented tank.
Bike got stolen. No word. A year went by.
Came home from a week away, and got a message on my answering machine (remember those?). Bike was recovered the previous evening. Great Luck! No huge impound fees! Went to pick it up and after inspection, determined someone had sat on this thing for a year and probably rode it ONCE and crashed. Brakes and tires were just as they were when I replaced them! They laid it down on the left side and the clutch perch got crushed with the handle pulled in, thereby making it unable to run anymore. Tank was spotted with blood. Good! Fucker! Hope you got tore up real good.
Replaced the ignition, put on the good body work, Good As New! Still got that bike. Still have the bloody tank hanging from the rafters in the garage.
I got another good Stolen Bike Story. Maybe I’ll do it later…
This particular one was (is, still got it) an 85 N model. Yellow, Toomey Pipes. The next story involves the Ultra-rare NC2 model with red/white alternative stipe scheme. It also hangs in my rafters now.
You’ve probably got some rotten fuel varnish down inside there. Maybe get a small can of Stoddard solvent and soak the whole thing in a cup or two of SS for a few days. The more you can disassemble it the better, but it may be pretty well fused with gunk and need more than one cycle of soak, disassemble, soak, disassemble further, etc.
The bike ran three years ago, so it was passing fuel then. There was a little bit of fuel in the tank, and when I drained it it was as red as Sta-Bil. I can buy a new one for $119.
That salvaged ignition/gas cap/seat lock set I bought. I went to the hardware store to get the Allen bolts and put it on the NOS Reddish Yellow Cocktail tank. The tank came with the anti-theft Allen bolt that goes under the cap (four bolts total, to hold the cap on). There are four decorative Allen bolts, and I only had one. The hardware store didn’t have any that short, so I stole three of them from the Chinese copy of the gas cap that’s on the old/damaged tank.
I was worried I’d have to buy mounting hardware for the tank and seat. I knew I had parts for the rear of the tank/front catch for the seat, but I didn’t know what I had for the front. It looks like the front mount is still on the old tank, and the big rubber ‘T’ is on the bike. But three years ago I ordered a complete kit. It was still in bubble wrap. So now the front mount is on the new tank, and the rear mount/seat catch (including the new big rubber ‘T’) parts are on the bike.
ETA: The page says non-California model parts, but they’re the same as my California bike.
When I removed the petcock yesterday, I noticed a ‘pipe’ sticking up out of the top of it. The end of it was broken. I’m guessing a fuel nozzle chipped the end on one of the thousands of occasions the bike was refuelled. I surmised that the ‘pipe’ was the main fuel pickup, and when the fuel level got low enough, switching to Reserve would take fuel from a lower pickup. Anyway, that’s my hypothesis and I’m sticking to it.
I’ve had a bunch of those by various manufacturers apart over the years. That’s exactly how they work. If some or all of the upward-sticking pipe is missing, your “main” tank capacity is increased and “your reserve” is decreased by the same amount.
Make darn sure the broken end isn’t crimped or obstructed by debris in any way. That results in engine cutout or failure at high throttle. Absent that, you just have a customized reduced reserve and no other issues.
Not enough to matter then. Which is good news. Once you do get it running it might the worthwhile in the first month or so to figure out your gas mileage and then run the experiment to see when it runs out of main & compute how many reserve miles you get with your customized petcock.
For the rough life that bike has had it probably won’t deliver factory spec.
I remember when Super Hunky broke his back in the LA Coliseum (Superbowl of Motocross is what that was know as back then) coming down the big jump out of the, what did they call that? Peristyle or something? I years later saw many a football game there, and always imagined motorcycles racing. I would have had great seats for that!
The R1’s replacement tank has been fixed and painted. Should have a ridable bike soon.
The knuckleheads who stole my Seca II broke the front post off of the left side fairing. The post has a pin that goes into a grommet in the frame, and is an integral part of the fairing. I found a yellow left-side fairing in Germany on eBay, and ordered it. I’ll still have to repaint it.
My beloved CX500 (not the actual one, but identical). Man, I loved that thing in my youth – riding it in the hilly countryside was just like flying – in the evening as the sun was setting you could feel distinct temperature changes between lower and higher elevations. Water cooled, shaft drive in the days when most bikes were neither of those things – it was closely modeled on the Gold Wing. 500 cc may not sound like a lot, but it was pretty peppy and great on the highway. I think I only got pulled over for speeding once, and by good luck the cop was a motorcycle fan and much more interested in the bike than in giving me a ticket.
I babied it and did some of my own maintenance (per the dictums of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, which is not actually about motorcycle maintenance at all). The CX500 is the reason I still own a socket set, though the bike itself is long gone, much like my youth.
Nice! My 3rd bike was a 1970 CX500 with 30,000+ miles on it that I bought from a coworker for a dollar. I put about 35,000 miles on it before I sold it. First gear didn’t work after a while, but it still did the job. The Seca II felt like it had a lot more power. Definitely accelerated faster. I saw one for sale at a shop in the state a few/several months ago for $2,850. If I had the money and the space, I would have bought it. I thought it was ‘closely modeled’ on a Moto Guzzi because of the engine.
Nice to meet a fellow CX500 former owner! My first bike was a used Honda 350cc of some sort that I bought from a friend and former roommate. I think it eventually served as a trade-in for the CX500. I don’t remember much about it but it was basically, meh, just a bike. The CX500 was the love of my life!
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