Today felt a little weird, because I took part of Friday off to have a couple huge windows installed in the house ($2,046.83 just for two). Meanwhile Kevin just decided he couldn't live with only 4-5 bikes to choose from so instead of waiting 'til winter to start resurrecting the '79 RD400F Daytona Special, we brought the cylinders in to be bored, and I luckily found 2nd over OEM pistons. It's getting pretty difficult to find good parts for this bike as it was the rarest of the air cooled vintage Yamaha twin RD series (the "Gixxer" of the 70's, so to speak).
I loosely planned to ride up the Columbia River Gorge to mini "Stonehenge" which is a exact scale replica of the famous British site, not sure of the ratio. We stayed up late and were kind of late getting up. I took off to run errands & pay bills on my little RD125.
By the time I returned it was noon and we both wanted some brunch. Quizno's sounded good, Prime Rib & Peppercorn, yum...so for an extra bit of fun Kev jumped on the tiny RD60 and off we went across town. He cracks me up, every other red light he was pulling it up on takeoff...this with an (actual) 55cc motor (pic attached).
So that was fun, and I'd perused CL a bit when I got up, to unexpectedly find an ad for RD400F parts, and an email reply to my inquiry about seeing the stuff. It turned out I'd bought parts from him before, but DAMN!!! We were in heaven with an entire room full of Daytona parts. This guy had about a dozen cars, old classics, 914 Porsches, crazy M/C projects, like the FZR400 chassis that was soon to receive a built-to-the-hilt H2 750cc 2 stroke Kawi motor fitted with CR500 reed cages...wicked!!
We spent awhile there checking out all the cool stuff, and when we left we had most of the parts we needed: a brand new side stand, an NOS shifter pedal, OEM filter, totally straight headlight ears (nearly impossible to find). I've haunted eVilBay enough to know this stuff would total about $150 there, so I was shocked when he said, $40...sold! We thanked him for giving us such a great deal, and he smiled and said, "I just like to see more of these get back on the road." Indeed. It's been sitting forlornly in my garage too long.
When we got home I decided since it was too late and a bit too cool for my tastes to take a run up the Gorge, I'd finally get to cleaning out an old Caliper finally apart that I'm rebuilding for my Cafe Racer. So while I did that, Kev took the Z out for a ride down Washougal River Road.
Just a simple, relaxing yet productive Saturday. Gotta love days like this; I'll probably ride the Gorge tomorrow.
A fun & productive day
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