My Inheritance as I like to call it..My father’s 86’ RD 350 LT
Has been part of my family since I was 3yrs Old.
I arrived at Ron's doorstep sometime in Feb 07 with my RD with a dream to get her running as she did in her hey dayz..
Let me take you through the history of the bike, the year was 1999 I had just completed my 10th board exams when high on life I decided this was the day that m gonna break the land speed record on my rd. The bike at that point of time was running on Standard size stock bore and pistons and pionts (which were as I found out la8r mistimed). As a result the moment the speedo needle went passed 130km/hr I heard the the worst sound that I have ever heard in my life, as the bike came a standstill and the engine died out I knew what had happened!! Till date I m still trying to undo the damage caused that day!!!
The bike that I brought to Ron was running on an auto escorts points replacement kit and a re-sleeved standard LT spec bore with TKR pistons. As most of u would expect the bike performed like shit!! This ay had finally come after nearly 5yrs of convincing my Dad that he's gotta trust me with the bike by sending it down 2 Bangalore for 'The Doctor' to operate on it.
After Ron heard my sob story, he said that he would help me get the bike back to my Dad, and I quote "Running the way an RD should run"..With that said I paid the full amount for the Digi Cdi III and got in queue, along with me a very close friend of mine Sarfraz too followed suite for his 82' RD 350 HT running on points and a stcok .75 bore.
3 months la8r we finally heard, what was music to our ears..Rod had the kits ready and asked my Sarfraz to get his bike down for the install, the reason being that sarfraz wanted to go in for a before and after dyno test and hence his rebuild was a priority.(The results of which r posted on the forum) Nevertheless I waited patiently for my turn (Really frustrated..)
A month la8r I finally managed to get some of Ron's valuable time (in between his frequent trips to the coimbatore track) and I rolled my bike into his basement for the installation. The next day after Ron had patiently death with my lack of mechanical abilities we had managed to complete the CDI installation. The CDI in question was a second hand kit that was returned from Chandigarh, Ron had of course intimated me of the same and due to the shortage of Drums I decided to accept the kit. (U see beggars can’t be choosers..)
The moment Ron kicked the bike into life I could hear her scream like I ve never heard her scream before..The increase in the RPM and power band was quite obvious to me at that very moment. Two trial runs and I had a smile on my face that just wouldn’t die out! Thanks a Ton Ron!!!!!
All this happened in the month of June, why the delay in putting up this post u ask? I had a trip home (Jeypore-Orissa) and was caught up in the cyclonic weather which delayed my return to Bangalore where the RD sits in my basement. Still a lot of work to be done on the bike, the connections to the new switch gear, ignition, indicators etc r yet to be sorted out!
As things stand now, I was down with chicken pox for the past 2 and half weeks and m back home in Orissa, just counting the days till m back in bangaolore and get my RD up and running again. The bike is running on what I presume is an 18degree timing, on standard size re-sleeved LT spec, with standard LT jets.
I haven’t been able to run the bike ever since the day of the install..will update this post as soon as m back and the bike is complete and ready to be presented back to my Dad!
Ron as you said I am probably the luck one to get my hands on what you said might be the last RDD Dig CDI III! Will bring the bike over to ur place once all the nitty gritties are done.
[PS will still be expecting the analogue cdi box which I didn’t get!]
