A Little More Work On Dave's Engine

Stopped by after work last night to finish putting the top-end on the RD400 motor. It took some time, but the assembly work went as expected.



First, the pistons were carefully cleaned, the ring gaps were measured and then the pistons were inserted in the bores. Next, the cylinder with the piston stuffed part way down the 'jug', was placed over the studs, slid down and the wrist pin and clips were put into place. At this point the left jug is all the way down into position.



Here's a top-down view of the piston situated in the cylinder. The cut-outs in the sides of the cylinder is what makes this a 2-stroke engine.



And now, the right-hand cylinder is in place and the heads are torqued down.



A little walk around to the left side of the engine is in order. You can see that the alternator and points system still needs to be installed. The carburetors and reed valves will be put in after the engine is mounted in the frame.



The sides of the heads were polished up to a mirror-like finish to give it that "just like in the old days" look.



I had forgotten how good these engines look when they are all cleaned up and put back together...



Things are moving along pretty well and it looks like we might be able to get the RD400 on the road before the end of the year...



Dave also bought this windshield for the bike and mounted it up to see how it looks. It seems to have a retro Shoei-fairing look that was all the rage when these bikes were in production.



This is what the bike looked like when he first brought it home. I can't believe somebody actually put a chopper-style backrest on this vintage sport-bike.



This is a picture of a restored RD400 that is similar to how Dave's should come out. Not too sure about the red on the fairing though, he's still kicking that around a bit...



Also, the factory exhaust pipes will be changed out for the above version, which when mounted, will look like the pipes on the bike in the next picture.



This one has a black-out theme on it, but it doesn't seem to jump out at you like the chrome work does of the factory equipment. The exhaust pipes (expansion chambers) tuck neatly under the cycle and actually do help to widen the power band (spread of usable power across the RPM range) of the engine. You can see that the Shoei fairing is still popular with quite a few of the RD400 owners out there...