» ’75 RD350 update: The donor Organ Donor

Never let an old girl die – bike restoration blog – and general bike gibberish related to keeping your girl on the road

’75 RD350 update: The donor

26 May, 2012

Went on a north western adventure on Saturday afternoon to get a new engine for the RD. The donor? A sprint car. She’s clearly had an interesting life… flogged half to death? Quite probably.

I’d have loved to have taken the sprint car for a spin, sadly she needed quite a bit of work…

On closer inspection, yeah, she’s a “little rough” around the edges 😉

After getting it home – I had quite a bit of fun maneuvering it about by myself… had to rig (ha) up some specialized engine movement equipment (read: skateboard).

I sadly have to admit I was more than a little surprised just how heavy these things are.

I’ve also been assured it’s got “new” bits inside… but when your current engine looks like below… you will be happy for any bits that aren’t rusted in place!

The project bikes current engine… there’s a war here and it’s slowly being won by apathy and rust!

Maybe the crank of my current engine is salvageable? I certainly don’t know… it’d be kinda nice to have matching frame/engine numbers but it may be a pipe dream… will pull it apart… if I’m able… curious to find out just how of an issue that rust will be.

The “sky hooks” part of me says it’s toast… the knowledgeable side of me, well, I don’t have that side just yet when it comes to engines or mechanics… haha.

Got a week off soon so I’ll probably dedicate a day to tearing it down, if I’m able!

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