Thunderace in the house!

LoneStar

LoneStar

Well-Known Member
www.sanducerrovineyards.com
Project Thunderace in the house!

I'm from Texas and I'd say howdy, but to be honest no one says that any more! I've been riding since I was 15, so I have 41 years "in the saddle". My newest ride is a 1997 YZF1000, or as they say across the pond - Thunderace!

I just picked this one up Thanksgiving morning, so I have yet to snap anything other than a crummy camera phone photo (which I'll spare you the "difficulty" of seeing). I should have better shots later today, but the bike is definitely a "project" bike. It is a good base to build on though. Bike has under 12k showing, appears to run great, shifts well, and brakes are good. Most of the "damage" is cosmetic (two low speed drops per the PO), so fresh panels and a repaint should do the trick.

I've had quite a few bikes in my time, but this is only my second Yamaha (or third if you count the 250 dirt bike I have in boxes). My previous ride was a 2005 Kawasaki ZRX1200R and prior to that I rode a 2006 Suzuki Hayabusa. My previous Yamaha street ride was an 1981 Seca 750.
 
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Pics - as promised:

I suppose every project bike has to have a starting point - here's mine...

Bad Side

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Good Side

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I have no idea why anyone would want to see the rest of the pics in high def :rofl:, but they're all here...

1997 Yamaha YZF1000 - Thunderace

Found some "additional" damage I missed when I purchased the bike yesterday. Unfortunately, it's an expensive part. I was unsure if I was going to need to replace or just repaint the front cowling and I was counting on a simple repaint. Unfortunately, when I went to take these shots I found the right side of the cowling was completely broken off at the top directly under the mirror. Not sure how I missed that... :doh:

Hopefully I won't find any more uh ohs...
 
Billy - I read your rebuild thread while doing research on Thunderace bikes in general. Your excitement over your project was probably one of the reasons I became "infected" with the project bike gene! After that it was just a matter of finding one - which was simplier than I thought. I hit up Craigslist and found two in Texas - one of which was local. Went over to see the nearest one and made him an offer. Unfortunately, it wasn't an offer he couldn't refuse as that's exactly what he did. However, it was the best I could do based on the bikes condition.

While my offer was WAY lower than the owner wanted, I did it with respect and honesty. I explained what reasoning went into my offer and what I was looking to do. While he couldn't go that low, we parted ways with a handshake. I told him if he didn't get any additional interest on the bike to give me a call. As it turns out, leaving in "good graces" was the right course of action - he e-mailed me latter that day and told me he had reconsidered!

He's probably not as happy with the price he got for the bike as I am with the price I paid, but truth be told I paid about $500 more than the bike was actually worth. But the bikes are unusual, if not rare - and I didn't feel like searching for months on end to find one - and I really didn't want to drive to the other side of Texas to look at the other one!
 
LoneStar said:
Billy - I read your rebuild thread while doing research on Thunderace bikes in general. Your excitement over your project was probably one of the reasons I became "infected" with the project bike gene! After that it was just a matter of finding one - which was simplier than I thought. I hit up Craigslist and found two in Texas - one of which was local. Went over to see the nearest one and made him an offer. Unfortunately, it wasn't an offer he couldn't refuse as that's exactly what he did. However, it was the best I could do based on the bikes condition.

While my offer was WAY lower than the owner wanted, I did it with respect and honesty. I explained what reasoning went into my offer and what I was looking to do. While he couldn't go that low, we parted ways with a handshake. I told him if he didn't get any additional interest on the bike to give me a call. As it turns out, leaving in "good graces" was the right course of action - he e-mailed me latter that day and told me he had reconsidered!

He's probably not as happy with the price he got for the bike as I am with the price I paid, but truth be told I paid about $500 more than the bike was actually worth. But the bikes are unusual, if not rare - and I didn't feel like searching for months on end to find one - and I really didn't want to drive to the other side of Texas to look at the other one!
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Awesome deal Keith. I'm glad I was able to rub off on someone here. I can't wait to start seeing your rebuild. It should be a blast. If your stuck with something and I can't help, there is always Tony (NJFZ1). He's my buddy who infected me with the YZF bug. Your bike looks pretty nice "as is".
 
LoneStar said:
Trust me when I say it looks nicer in pictures than it does in person! :disapproval: My camera takes very good pictures...

Priced out all the replacement panels I "want" - and the total came to just over $1800. Gotta see if I can find a corner or two to cut...
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Yikes!!! I know. The panels are really expensive, and thats if you can even find them. I still haven't been able to find the left side rear panel in gray/black. I also want the rear cowling which is nearly impossible to get these days. It really "sports" out the rear of the bike super nice. I'd love to hear how that D&D sounds. If you ever are able to take a short vid of her running I'd be really pleased.:cheers:
 
YZFRiderNY said:
Yikes!!! I know. The panels are really expensive, and thats if you can even find them. I still haven't been able to find the left side rear panel in gray/black. I also want the rear cowling which is nearly impossible to get these days. It really "sports" out the rear of the bike super nice. I'd love to hear how that D&D sounds. If you ever are able to take a short vid of her running I'd be really pleased.:cheers:
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It appears the Vivid Red Cocktail was the color that made it to the majority of bikes - as such it seems there is more NOS (New Old Stock) out there. I checked with the dealer on Tuesday before I went to see the bike to price out stock and availability (I already knew the right side was trashed). There were 3 panels left at Yamaha and they were all in the warehouse in Japan. I'm pretty sure one of those has my name on it...

I'll be honest with you on the D&D - it doesn't move my soul. I'll do a video of it and let you hear it. I also have a a second D&D in chrome that came with the bike. I'm planning on switching to it as I think I'll like the sliver better than the black with this color combination.
 
Did an "inventory" of the Thunderace this afternoon to see what could be salvaged and what could not. I noticed something rather funky on the tail and when I went back to the factory pictures I realized the rear turn signals were not stock - at all... Unfortunately, one or more of the previous owners decided to ditch the factory units and add what I'm sure they believed were flush mount lights. :ugh: Needless to say, they will never do for a factory restoration.

To further compound the issue, they decided to drill a hole for mounting in the tail! :disapproval: Now BOTH sides will need to be repaired, sanded, primed, and repainted. I hope this is a job I can tackle myself. I'm thinking I can use plastic weld on the back side to fill in the hole and then do a very small touch up job with spray paint from Colorite. Luckily the "hole" is super small and under a curve in the tail. I'm thinking it will be hard to see and my amateur attempts at repainting will be mostly hidden.

Other than the "mounting holes" the tail sections looked OK from 5 feet. Of course a closer inspection revealed a large number of cuts and scrapes - all of which would be visible to anyone with better vision than myself (which includes just about everyone). I had already looked to see if the tail was still available from Yamaha, but it's not. So I'm left with no option but to make these panels work. So I took out my trusty jar of Turtle Wax Polishing Compound and went to work. To my great joy and satisfaction the scratches and cuts responded well - VERY WELL! So it looks like the tail section will be usable - just have to deal with the holes...

I also opened the "bag of parts" that came with the bike. I was excited to see all of the factory turn signals in the bag! But that joy turned to disappointment when I realized every one of them were broken. Looks like I'll need 4 lights as well.

The main body panels are a mess (and that's an understatement). The right side is toast. The cost to repair and repaint it would exceed the cost of a replacement. Luckily these are still available from Yamaha. The left side is better, but it's already been repaired in at least one place and it has numerous attempts at touching up scratches with non-matching paint. Here again, the cost to refinish will exceed the cost of a replacement - so there's another part for my order.

As I had previously mentioned, the front fairing is literally missing a big chunk on the right side. And here again, there's still stock at Yamaha! So add one more body part to the bill!

The bat wing or bottom fairing is also in rough shape, but I'm not going to replace it. I'll attempt to sand it down and repaint it myself. Being "on the bottom" it will not be as visible as the rest of the panels and should be OK.

The tank had quite a few mar marks, but nothing major. I hit the tank with a light dusting of polishing compound and it also started to come back to life. I'll hit it with the buffer later on and it should look like new again.
 
Wow Keith, you seem to have the same issues I had with my tail section. I have yet to fill, sand, and paint the holes from the flush mounts, but maybe this winter. As you can see in the photo, the P.O. had installed the flushmounts as well to my dismay.
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If you remember in my rebuild, I had a custom plate bracket stamped out of stainless steel to mount the stock lights to.

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I used some simple 1-1/2" corner braces to mount the stock lights to and then mounted them to the plate bracket.

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Here it is mounted on the bike. It came out pretty nice looking in the end, and unless you know about these bikes, you would think it was a stock setup.

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I can't wait to see pics of your build. It's gonna be awesome and will hopefully keep me occupied during the winter here in NY.
 
The goobers who did mine mounted a light that actually looked factory - until I remembered your thread! I keep looking at the tail lights and thinking wow - I can't believe Yamaha would use such crappy looking screws to mount the lights... :nothing:

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As you can see the lights are in the tails cut out...
 
Billy - I like your bracket! I'll probably go with a stock factory fender though. I want the bike as close to original as possible. I just wish there were more "used" parts available....

I imagine used parts are plentiful overseas...
 
LoneStar said:
Billy - I like your bracket! I'll probably go with a stock factory fender though. I want the bike as close to original as possible. I just wish there were more "used" parts available....

I imagine used parts are plentiful overseas...
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There is a guy on Ebay from Ohio that has good used parts for the YZF. I'll see if I can find his username and pass it along. He actually had that inner undertray for sale. I think it was about 60 bucks. Forget about overseas! The prices are insane and the shipping charges even worse.
 
Here's what I need so far.

4SV-Y283U-20-P0 $420.25 Panel Assembly 1 VIVID RED COCTAIL (VRC1/0121) - Left Fairing

4SV-Y283V-20-P0 $420.25 Panel Assembly 2 VIVID RED COCTAIL (VRC1/0121) - Right Fairing

4SV-Y283G-00-0X $391.30 Body, Front Upper 1 UR VRC1/BL2 - Front Cowling

4SV-2837L-00-00 $100.61 Panel, Console 1

4SV-21611-00-00 $64.50 Fender, Rear

These are the best prices I found. They're from powersportsplus.com and shipping is free on any order over $250 in the US. I plan on getting the bike registered today and then pulling the trigger on these items. I'd like to "skip a step" and order the European versions of the side fairings, but I'm afraid the shipping charges would kill me. The Euro versions have the decal "Thunderace 1000" on the panels - which I want. Hopefully the new US panels have easily removeable decals (my originals do) so I can remove the YZF1000 and replace it with the Thunderace 1000 decals. I know I can source the decals much easier than the true Euro panels.

I found a great website last night that has a fantastic copy of the Owner's manual available for download. It's not a "scanned" copy, so it's perfect in every respect. Also found a Parts Catalog with all of the Euro numbers - once again, not scanned. And I also found a US parts catalog that was scanned. Let me know if anyone needs the links.
 
DenArnold said:
Congrats on the purchase. Looking forward to see your "projectbike" restored fully.

I found a lot of stuff on the German Ebay

yamaha thunderace | eBay
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WOW! That's a link to a candy store for sure! I had a feeling parts would be more plentiful overseas. I tried the UK (they kinda speak English over there), but there wasn't any where near the number of parts as the German EBay has.

Thanks for the link! :tup:
 
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