Jesse's R5 Project - Tips and Questions

Jesse in Pittsburg writes in to show us his progress, share a few things, and ask some questions:

Hi Lawrence,

After a long hiatus, I'm back to working on my R5C project. I've got the bike stripped down to the frame, as you can see here:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/jtroy/sets/72157624609357225/

I've made a list of items that are going for powder coating and painting (see attached). I wonder if anyone can add to the list? Did I forget anything? If you want, post this list on your site. It might be helpful for others doing a frame-up restoration. You may also want to post the PDF copy of the parts catalog that I found (also attached).

Please also ask whether anyone has advice for removing the steering lock from the frame. I've drilled out the rivet but the lock still won't slide out (see photos at the link above). Is there some trick to getting it out? I'm hoping it won't be necessary to drill the lock to pieces to get it out!

Thanks Jesse! I'm sure some folks will find this useful:
R5_powder_paint.xlsx (40k Excel doc)
R5_R5B_R5C_Parts_Catalog.pdf (484k PDF)

As for the fork lock, I'm not sure how that's held in... It's not very well illustrated in any of the diagrams I have (see links at right). Anyone?

FixTheBike.com

Came across FixTheBike.com while I was updating the links in my previous posts (manual downloads should work correctly now). It's a great idea, similar to this site but much broader in scope - bring together all sorts of documentation on all sorts of bikes in one place for free download. From their wiki:

The first place on the internet that will try to pull together a vast ocean of motorcycle information into one place for everyone to find and use completely free of charge or restrictions.

The site looks very empty until you log in. Once logged in you will gain access to everything. This is to help prevent spammers and other bots from wrecking the site.

So please enjoy yourself. Please strongly consider uploading any documents you may have as this is the only way we can grow. Donations are always more than welcome to help cover bandwidth costs.

I already saw some stuff from this site up there, and I'm in the process of uploading some more...

Manual Madness!

Tom writes in with some great stuff he'd like to share:

I have been using your site for months now as I work on restoring my 72 R5C. I was kindly sent these files though from a fellow two stroker I met though Craigslist. He insisted that since this info is so hard to find that I should share it in any way possible. So I am sending it to you for if you want it on your site. I am not sure of the legality of this though. This info is very old and I doubt any publisher will say anything, but you never know. These files are quite large though and will take a while for people on dial-up. They have all been worth their weight in gold to get my R5C on the way to running again. Maybe in return if anyone knows of a killer deal on a pair of carbs for my bike they can drop me a line?

Here are links to the files. They're rather large, so be prepared for long download times:

Yamaha Service Manual for DS7, RD250, R5C & RD350 1972-1973
Yamaha Motor Corp, 1974
51.75MB, 113 pages

How to Fix your Yamaha Two Cylinder, Two Stroke Motorcycle
Intertec Publishing Corp, 1975
76.25MB , 86 pages

Yamaha 250-400cc 2-Stroke Twins - 1965 - 1978 - Service and Repair Manual
Clymer Publications, 1978
88.55MB, 190 pages

And please, let me know if you can help Tom out with a set of carbs!

R5C 350 Riders Manual

Seeing as it's extremely hard to come by these days, and seeing as how mine is slowly crumbling, I figured I'd scan and post the "Rider's Manual" that came with the R5 when it was new. Fair warning though, it's a fairly large file. Enjoy!

R5C 350 Riders Manual (25.5 MB PDF)

R5 Wiring Diagrams

Ok kids... a lot of you have been asking about electrical issues. Seems these bikes (as just about anything 30+ years old!) have a bunch of gremlins, and it can be a real pain sorting everything out. I'm in the middle of it myself. So I thought I'd revamp the diagrams on the site as well as highlight them all in one post here.

- R5C Wiring Diagram - from the 1972 Rider's Manual
- R5F Wiring Diagram - not a US model
- RD 250/350 Wiring Diagram - for reference, should you need it

Also here are two diagrams tracing the physical wiring harness as shown in the factory Service Manual to help you locate everything:

- R5C Wiring Harness Diagram 1
- R5C Wiring Harness Diagram 2

And finally, here is a link to a PDF of the electrical section of the factory Service Manual (via OMP).

Gotta love all the hand-drawn complexities and typos throughout! Anyways, I hope this helps!

Mikuni Super Tuning Guide

Just came across this handy manual on the Mikuni USA carburetor owner's and tuning manuals page. This downloadable and printable manual helped me understand the inner workings of my VM carbs. Below is the direct link to the relevant PDF:

VM "Round Slide" Tuning Manual (1.3 MB)

Metallic Orange Paint Solution

I've gotten a bunch of email from others looking for the orange metallic paint that's used on the R5... as far as I could discover, it was officially called "Mandarin Orange" and was used on the 71 and 72 R5s... see these documents:

1971 R5B (656k PDF) - Mandarin Orange over white
1972 R5C (756k PDF) - Mandarin Orange over black

You'll need the free Adobe Reader to view and print these files. Thanks again to Don Q for this info.

Well, after rooting around a little on the r5yamaha Yahoo! Group, I found a response posted by the always-helpful Ed:

There are no codes! House of Color has paint that will get you there. here is a link:

http://www.hokpaint.com

I have restored many early Yamahas and the orange you need is a candy shot over a silver base (fine grain) black is black as long as all the black body parts are the same black . I.ve gotten a dead on match to this color on my 71 R5 and I've matched the candy red on my 65 YDS3 and the candy blue on my 66 YM1 using these paints. the color varies depending on how soft or heavy you spray it on.Thats how candies work,all the metalics are in the base coat and the color coat is translucent so more = darker. I hope this helps. Ed

So there it is... no quick and easy bottle touch-up for me. O well - hopefully this info can get in the hands of some more people who need it by posting it here.

R5 Model Identification

A few people have written in lately and asked me how to identify an R5. After some searching on the internet, I found that there was suprisingly little information about this. So I've decided to repeat a little information from some earlier posts and other sites to get this info into one comprehensive place.

The Yamaha R5 series is the predecessor to the RD series. The R5 models were built in 1970 (A model), 1971 (B model) and 1972 (C model). The R5 is a piston ported motorcycle, so unlike the RDs there are no reed valves. It also uses a 5-gear transmission, unlike the later 6-gear RDs. It was very similar to the YDS7, and used oil injection and front and rear drum brakes (the later RDs got the front disc brake).

For more information, photos and articles, scroll down the sidebar at left. For official specs, click here or scroll to the very bottom of the page.

In terms of overall model year color schemes, from what I've gathered:

1970 R5(A) - Metallic Purple/white
1971 R5B - Mandarin Orange/white
1972 R5C - Mandarin Orange/black

This is the way you can tell the model years apart visually. But, as so many surviving bikes have swapped/lost body parts or been repainted, the next step is to check numbers:

Engine or Frame Numbers (start-end)
1970 R5(A) - R5-000101 - 013649
1971 R5B - R5-015101 - 042209
1972 R5C - R5-100101 - 130606

The R5 shares the same serial numbers for both engine and frame. You can find the engine numbers stamped in large numerals on a flat section of the left side of the case, above the shift lever. If the flat spot is there, but no number, most likely you have a replacement case.

The frame number is also stamped in large numerals on right side of the neck of the frame, just in front of the tank.

This info comes from a dealer document listing colors, start and ending engine and frame numbers on all Yamahas '62-74. A very generous Don Q scanned the docs from 1970-1972 (R5 model years) and posted them as PDFs on his site. The rest of the pages are so bad they are not readable and Don will have to type them up manually. His files are pretty big because of the scan, but have a great old photocopied look to them. You can download them from his site here, or you can download smaller, slightly cleaner PDFs here:

1970 R5(A) (536k PDF)
1971 R5B (656k PDF)
1972 R5C (756k PDF)

You'll need the free Adobe Reader to view and print the files.

Don is a very talented striper, flamer, letterer and artist located in Costa Mesa, California. There's some really good stuff on his site - check it out! Special thanks to Don for sharing this info.

Big Yama logo

Googled for a Yama logo the other day, came across this really large JPEG image, could prove useful...

UPDATE - Found some EPS artwork that could prove even more useful, via brandsoftheworld.com... here's the whole list, and there's a few gems in there, including the full tuning-fork logo and even Yamalube... I've added a "Graphics" section to the links on the left. Check it out!