Topic Approved.

Mr. Prashanth It was a pleasure going through your wonderfully scripted RD experience. The RD definitely is the benchmark motorcycle in India as far as performance goes... Eagerly waiting for the part II and please post some pics..

Appreciate the quick approval Aryan..!!

Alrightey time for the restoration part of the story. So I got two RD's with me now which were running junk..thats how Id call them. They were working..hardly!! :P

Believe me when I say this, I had started stocking up on RD parts even before I owned any. I had about 800$ remaining in my Paypal account after I returned from the states and I decided to buy some parts for my RD. Ebay was my source. My idea was to build the best RD with the given amount of cash. Now I know an RD restoration with a limited budget is not really a good idea. But heck it was like a challenge. Mind you money was not actually a issue here but it was more of a challenge to myself for some damn reason!!

Before I began buying parts I created a table or list if you like to call it that. It basically had two columns. One being a column of things that were a must and the other was a wishlist that Id like to have on my bike someday. But today after completing my rebuild Im glad to say that I have all the items on the bike that were there on the wishlist too

Anyways, the first ever item I procured for the bike was a pair of Boyseen dual stage reeds.This was off of ebay. My bike has been nicknamed the ebay bike by many a people here..you will know why as read along.

I scoured ebay for hours. And when I say hours I mean it. There were/are times when I check ebay almost every ten mins. Call me crazy!! But all that time has sure saved a whole lot of moolah in the end. My first major buy consisted of the following items

* Standard size RD cylinders and heads (US spec offcourse considering it came from there:P)
*Wiseco Forged pistons std
*Original RD reed cages and reeds
*Entire crankshaft assembly with about 3k odd miles on it..so basically new!!
*Brand new TM 32 flatslides

I bought all these parts from the same guy. Here's the best part. I paid 32k for all the above items and that includes shipping and duties. See what I meant by ebay saving me money..? :P

The restoration work finally started sometime in May 09 if Im not wrong. One of the bikes was stripped right down to the chassis. All the metal parts were sand blasted clean and then powder coated to prevent any rust issues. The tank was powder coated inside out.Once that was done it was basically a question of putting stuff back on. I had got a majority of spare parts from chennai itself..and that includes all the nuts bolts and blah blah!! So the bike started taking shape slowly.

The cylinders were honed ,the ports corrected and the crank balanced by Raju Sir. The engine was basically done. The engine case was sand blasted too and the engine covers were powder coated black. I chose the US RD colour scheme for my bike. The maroonish red with stripes. The painting was done by some person in a place which I swear is in chennai but I have no idea of its name. Ive lived all my life here but never have I been there :P . I was quite scared of the guy screwing up the stripe job but I was definitely in for a surprise when I saw the finish.Im sure you'll will be too. I managed to source original "Yamaha" tank decals to match the paint scheme. The decals are period correct and are OE Yamaha manufactured ones..dated..wait for it..1973!! Again thanks to ebay. I paid about 2500 for the decals alone but boy that is cheap considering that similar original ones sell for about 5 to 8k even on ebay..(ebayin is not all that easy either )

Original headlamp doom was sourced from somewhere by mechanic and so were the switches.Now the bike pretty much had all the accessories and they were all genuine issue. ah I guess I forgot to tell you'll that my other rule for the rebuild was to keep the bike as original as possible. Chambers were decided for the bikes as we thought the Indian exhausts might prove to be a tad too restrictive. So Raju Sir designed the chambers and built 'em.
The search for parts was never ending ( it still has'nt) . I sourced a second pair of original meters from pune. And finally the icing on the cake has to be this. Remember my wishlist..? Sitting right on top of that list was a pair of DG Gold anodized radial fin heads. I fell in love with those heads the moment I saw them on the net. For people who dont know what they are, these are billet aluminium heads made back in the 70's by a company called DG. They were advertised as high performance heads but the high performance part is debated all over the world. It sure has a lot more surface area than the OE RD heads and hence will definitely cool better. These are not manufactured anymore and there are only a few of these remaining worldwide. And hence they command a premium on ebay (read almost 750+ $ ).
I knew I wanted these heads but was not prepared to shell out close to 50k for these just cause I thought they looked good. But one fine night I spotted a pair of these heads for sale on ebay. Usually when one of these heads go on sale on ebay with a Buy it now price they are taken immediately if its a decent price. And this one that I spotted had a BIN price..and the asking was 450$ which was incredibly pricing..but no one had taken it..why..? cause it was advertised under the wrong section ...lady luck sure was on my side..the seller had wrongly advertised it as "RD350-400 DG heads"..so those who are searching for RD 350 parts or RD 400 parts wont get to see this..a few years of ebaying and you'll know the insiders trick to finding great deals like this one. But wait if you thought I paid 450$+50$ shipping to India your very wrong. Now that I knew nobody would notice this advert I sent a message to the seller. I offered him a price of 300$ shipped to India..and his reply " go see the price clearly 300$ it is NOT" ..he seemed quite pissed..I wanted to pay the 450 and pick it up but since he seemed a little arrogant with his reply I thought il play a little game with him and take a chance. I knew noone would buy it cos it was advertised under the wrong section. And I waited till the last day of the auction. Just an hour before auction end I sent him a mail saying im still interested and he goes " go rip someone else not me" ..two days later out man comes back saying " ok bro Il sell the heads to you" ...LOL ..that was sure fun and I ended up saving some chump change there..they say fortune favours the brave..heck yeah it does So I got the heads shipped to my place and today Im the proud owner of the ONLY RD in India with DG heads..now thats quite somethin atleast to me!! and not to mention that this is one of the very few bikes that Raju sir had literally built and tuned himself..

End of the entire restoration Ive calculated my expenditure and Im pleased to say that I spent about 1.03 Lakhs..But have a bike which is worth WAAY more than that..and that is what I meant when I said I wanted to build a bike withing a budget that nobody else should be able to.. Now when I sit and calculate just the parts that have gone into my engine come to about 90k if i were to buy them at market prices here's a list of all the parts on the bike

RD350 US spec cylinders,
DG Heads,
Wiseco Forged Pistons,
Mikuni TM 32 Flatslides,
Boyseen reeds,
Expansion Chamber by Raju Sir,

Basically the entire top and bottom end except for the engine cases are imported..:P
I guess thats the end of the story of my rebuild ..I would definitely like to thank everybody involved in this rebuild..Raju Sir..offcoure I cannot thank him enough!! My mech Vallavan from besant nagar and a few members here..!! I hope you enjoy reading through this as much as I enjoyed typing it out :P .. I will post some quality pictures in a day or two's time but for now im uploading a few pics from my mobile phone..enjoy guys!

Posting a few pics..excuse the quality of the pics as they were taken using a phone.will get btr pics in a few days time..till then enjoy..!! and I have a few pics of the DG heads too..and one pic where it is mounted on the bike..thats more like a teaser.. :P

Wow thts one nice rebuild on the way. Good luck buddy.

@Prashanth - I've no words to congratulate you man!!! I can feel the joy, the tears, the search, the pain & what not? Your narration was more than words; (still thinking what to say); The TM32's looks awesomely beautiful. Your hard work is paying off, especially when you ride the bike, the sound it makes, when heads turn towards to you & when you're at signal, someone asks you "Sir imported vandiyaa? Evvalo aachchu?" (Sir, is the vehicle imported, how much did it cost?); there's a measurement for your finance, but what's the measurement for the involvement, dedication, wait, patience, effort, joy, pain, anxiety...Priceless isn't it?

Being in Chennai, would like to see your bike sometimes, let me know if its OK with you.

prashant- congrats on the 350, good to see you back in xbhp as well. waiting to see the bike in flesh

@Argee : absolutely mate...your welcome to come home anytime and take a look..will try coming over for a meet sometime

@Steve: thanks man..long time..hope everythings going good

@Prashanth : Nice stuff man. It takes a lot of patience and time (and money ) to do what you are doing. Keep it up.

Here's a tank teaser :P

^^^Good work there; looks no different to US RD 350

^ Thanks mate..and here's a nice little story that Im reminded of..After I decided on the paint scheme I told the painter exactly what I wanted. He had no idea about what I was talking since he had never painted an RD with this theme before.Hence he asked me to get him as many pictures as possible.So I scoured the net and found pictures.I thought Il enlarge them to make it easy for him.So I took the pics to a printer here and asked him to enlarge the pics and give me colour printout. The guy started working on the pics one by one. He noticed that the pics were focussed primarily on the tank. He was like "Sir is this a new Yamaha bike and are you working on the design..?" ..I was like ugh I wish I was but that bike in the pic is about 30 years old..the reaction on his face..Priceless!! :P

Exactly; these are the experiences no one can beat; I've seen (& tired of hearing) many people riding on brand new looking 350's & even RX's; when you stop them & ask anything about the work, they've only one answer - "Enakku theiryaadhu, mechanic ennoda friendu dhaan, work nalla irukka sir?" (I don't know, mechanic is my friend, how's the work?); till date I'm yet to get one different answer, say in last 5-6 years. I've even seen people riding on after market carbs & they don't even know its called Flat slides, don't know the jets, don't know what paint used & absolutely nothing;

Now if I happen to stop you on the road, I'm sure the conversation will run into hours

Haha absolutely man..Il be more than glad to pull over and start yapping.!! :P