… MotoWasabi … Vintage Japanese Ring-Dings A Go-Go » DS6

Yamaha DS 6 Road test

admin — Sun, 06 Sep 2009 12:24:16 +0000

Another brilliant Sunday… 4th in a row!
I decided to have a major test day: first bike was this Yam that I finished in winter… I had my doubt wether it would run as well on the road as well as it did in the workshop. Strangely, it did even if overall it’s the one bike with the “vintage” feeling. It doesn’t compare well to my other bikes from the same year.
This might be due to the vertical-split motor or the gearbox. The handling is quite good, once you get used to the bike’s small size and typical Japanese period shocks. The clutch, being all new, performed faultessly even if the action is rather short. Brakes are also some of the best I tried in a standard form, with the back being stronger than the front!
The only thing that spoiled the test was the carburation: it doesn’t mind idling and will do for ever, but on take off it feels totally strangled. It very easy to stall it, but once on the go, if you keep the revs up, it accelerates quite well.

Back from the run

Needs to be done:

Tighten all bolts general check all over the bike.
Change crank seals, it’s the probable cure for the richness.
Oil pump feels like overoiling: Adjust.
It’s also pissing oil from the RH side (should be dry): investigate and check

Needs also a side stand and spring and rubber. The badges aren’t yet glued to the covers! Decal needed for RH side.
If I’m not mistaken it also needs a battery door.

Really not that much needed to make it complete.

The wonders of The DS6 Clutch

admin — Sat, 14 Feb 2009 05:04:01 +0000

This is what I found when I dismantled the clutch:

Most of the Fiber Plates were broken. New set needed… plus there’s an alarming amount of play. You can move the basket back and forth AS WELL as ROCK it on the shaft. Not what you want.

The clutch basket fingers are marked severely, I have never seen a clutch so abused.

Front brake restoration

admin — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 05:11:08 +0000

While waiting for some of the clutch parts, it was time to take care of the brakes:

I doubt these functioned very well.
After a bit of polishing and cleaning:

And new shoes (note how different they are from the original iron plate ones),

These should be sorted for some time to come.

New Badges

admin — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 05:02:49 +0000

With a repainted tank, you really need new badges, anything old & wonky will stand out.
Don’t you agree?

More parts today

admin — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 04:14:15 +0000

Received the headlight rim and a pilot light socket… Some action will happen today in the shop! EDIT: too much snow…

Bit of Progress

admin — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 04:16:55 +0000

Received some parts today: rubbers, headlight etc… Promptly managed to break the headlight glass :> before finding that Kawasaki S1 headlight fit straight in a DS6 as well as early aircooled RDs. Damn.

A bit of Progress

admin — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 04:15:04 +0000

Disassembling shrouded shocks… what a pain!

admin — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 12:07:38 +0000

This is of interest to both DS6 and Samurai/Avengers bikes owners (The shocks are the same, maybe produced by a contractor Showa? Koto?). In THEORY: you should be able to unscrew the top aluminium part (anti-clockwise) after punching out the pin.

First clamp the shock in a vice. Punch out pin with long nose punch, prise pin out with plier.

Unscrew top ally bit. It is screwed onto the threaded rod that goes through the seal (in the skinny bottom part of the shock). The painted cover also has a thread… hence everything will spin endlessly if the parts are slightly rusted.

This is as far as we got. You can see in the background of the previous photos the first shock we dismantled… of course, we didn’t take pics of that. What we’re doing in fact is screwing in the painted shroud untill it bottoms out on the unthreaded part of the rod. This stops the spinning rod and gives us a chance to unscrew the seized top part. This one resisted all attempts. I spared you the worst: I had to cut open the shroud and make a special tool with a lock plier in order to grab the rod and unscrew the top… not pretty.

Before that I also made tool with a 34mm socket used with a impact pneumatic tool to try and unscrew the top bit… it wouldn’t budge, the rod kept spinning.

You can see the culprit: the top shroud washer had unwelded itself from the shroud. It is only spot-welded twice to the shroud.

This is where it belongs.

Completely dismantled shock… there is a rubber damper at the bottom, close to the seal, not in the pic. Don’t forget it when you reassemble, I did… Pass a tap and die on all threads and coat them with TONS of copper anti-seize… The marks On the rod should really be higher that the seal lips, try to grab it as high as possible.

Finished product. Mounted on bike… It took me more than 5 hours to do that shock… the first one took 5 minutes… Luckily I had a set of new painted shrouds, so I could sacrifice the one in this post… Got me fuming for an afternoon. Bottom line: it either works nicely or expect trouble, BIG trouble. If they show leaks… dismantle them to recuperate the shrouds (if you can) and buy a used set… the seal is under a pressed washer in the body and CAN’T be extracted without destroying the shock ie NOT servicable. I think you’d be better off painting the shock without disassembling them if the chrome is OK.

Horrors that lurk in the dark

admin — Sat, 06 Dec 2008 04:55:50 +0000

After all that work I decided to polish the LH cases (Clutch). This is what I found Inside:

Click on the pic and notice how the first fiber plates ears are broken… New set needed.

Spaghetti incident solved!

admin — Thu, 27 Nov 2008 04:17:25 +0000

Lo and behold, I DID reassemble my switch with the contacts the wrong way round… pesky little things. Everything works as it should now. Getting into the polishing part of things… and waiting for my parts. I also changed my handlebars, it looks much better now, I still need to re-route a few cables. Check my Links page to find reliable sources of parts and services.