Update on the RG

Well at least with all this horrible weather, it has given me plenty of time in the garage! It snowed again today - the 25th of May! If I had to miss a years racing then this was the one - I don't think any race weekend has been completely dry as yet!

So I got the milling machine working to finish off my ride height adjuster for the RG, I was a bit tentative at first, but it works fine, still can't suss out how to remove the mill chuck inserts that hold each tool, at the moment I wack 'em with a mallet - not very good as they fall on the machine somewhere, I am sure blunting themselves in the process - note to self, must look that up on google.

I have now fitted the adjuster so that's job done (no photo yet). The other big job I've decided to tackle is fitting the bigger carbs that I bought second hand - TM34's, to the RG. In order to do this you need to open up the crankcase so that the admission hole is as big as the carb, I didn't feel quite up to this, so I have found a specialist in France who could do the job. Classic Racing Motos is up near Nantes (North West France). So I drove up on Friday (8 hours), to drop off the top crank case plus the cylinders and heads, as well as the carbs. Jerome is a fireman, and in his spare time he tunes RG 500's, he has a stack of them in his garage, and he does all the work by hand, in fact with a dremel, he reckons about 3 days to clean up the 4 admission ports, plus he will match the cylinders to the crankcase, and generally clean up everything so it fits nicely - he is an interesting bloke, with loads of stories etc... He will also provide some Marenello rotary disk covers which are oversized, again this should help with opening up to make the best of having big carbs.

So the bike is all over the floor again! When I took it down, I was happily surprised at the wear level of the pistons, cylinders compared to the last few times I have had it a part, I will probably change the rings as I have them already, as it would seem silly not to. I don't know wether to remove the cranks as this will disturb the seals, as who knows what crap there is in the bottom of the crankcase... we'll see.

I had to modify the inlet manifolds as the only rotary disk covers he had in stock were 70mm between bolt holes, and to wait for others would be end of July so out with the hack saw... As you can see my big radiator was looking messay, so I  spent a couple of hours straightening the cooling fins with a pen knife, a good snowy weather occupation!