Customers Motorcycle Gallery

Jason is based in Seattle, USA  and he has a passion for classic motorcycles since early teens.

Here is the story of his beloved 1974 Yamaha RD200A in his own words:

This was the first motorcycle I ever owned (I had ridden a few before, but this one was mine).  I bought it in either 1991 or 1992 (memory is a bit fuzzy) when I lived in Minnesota.  I rode it around for a few seasons and left it parked in a barn at my parents place when I moved to Seattle for graduate school in 1998.  My younger brother asked if he could use it so I gave it to him and he towed it all the way from MN to Florida where he rode it for a season and then back to MN where it went back into the barn.  

While visiting my parents some years later, I was poking around in the barn and saw it languishing.  I had more experience with motorcycles at that point as when I moved to Seattle I became a year round rider (I couldn't afford a car, but a bike was within my budget and I loved it) and when I saw the little RD in the barn it made me sad to see decay starting to set in.  In the spring of 2005, I found someone on craigslist with an empty truck driving my way and for $100 was able to have him deliver both the RD and a Yamaha XS400 that my younger brother gave to me. (pic 1 is as it arrived in Seattle)

The RD was completely disassembled and put into milk crates to keep space available for other projects I was working on (pic 2 - into milk crates).

In 2010, I finally had the bandwidth to start putting it back together. I was originally going to powder coat the frame and do more "restoration", but decided that she was still in good enough shape that I wanted to treat her as a survivor and that I would leave whatever patina of age didn't clean off (pic 3 - rebuilding).  The exception was the cylinders and carbs which did get paint (pic 4 - carbs).  It was a slow process and it involved sourcing a number of things.  I gave her new pistons and rings (1st oversize), rebuilt the carbs, replaced bushings, fork seals, swapped out the roller bearings for tapers at the head, replaced points and condensers, and everything else I could to bring her back.

By the spring of 2012, it was time to show her off again at local bike nights (pic 5 - spring 2012).  She looked great, but kept fouling plugs on the right cylinder and ended up parked again until just a few months ago when I pulled her back out to dust her off and get her running again.  

During the 2010 -2012 rebuild one of the parts I sourced was a pair of intake boots from the air box to the carbs.  When a listing showed up on ebay I ordered (even though it was twice as much as I wanted to pay).  When the package arrived, I was stunned to find out that it wasn't a pair, but the left side boot only.  At the time I couldn't find a right side boot anywhere so I ended up using some self vulcanizing tape to wrap the age hardened and shrunken original intake boot to the carb.  I think this was partially disrupting airflow into the carb at certain RPMs or something and causing the aforementioned plug fouling on the right side.  I was thrilled to find Sumo rubber when it came time to get her on the road again this year and finally have a fresh right side boot to match the left.  

The final picture (pic 6 - back in action) is from the tail end of a 20 mile jaunt around town.  Happy to report that both cylinders were making power the whole time .

This 1975 model of Yamaha RD200 has been lovingly restored to its original form by Bruno from Belgium.

Bruno even gave us the honour and decorated his motorcycle with Sumo Rubber sticker.

As he said himself: "Happy Customer"