RT3 First Start checkup

Compressions at 135psi. Seems too high.

Spark plug is light light brown / tan.

RT3 - details

Here's some shots I'm putting up for the yamahaenduro forum

Rear lights:
I'm not a huge fan of the side mount license plate but there was nowhere else to mount it if I was to keep my rear clean. Reminds me of choppers too much.

Under the seat:
The Trailtech Vapor mounted up: I shaped the plastic mount piece to slide in and conform perfectly to the top triple clamp. Looks like it was made for this bike.
From the front. Low profile:

damn tank

More problems with my tank. After much problems getting my new gun to spray very thick paint, I got the epoxy primer on. That allowed me to see this:

Left side: Better overall shape at the top, curve looks good until the bottom third. The concave part goes a little flat and mushy. The curve is not clearly defined. Not sure how to fix this side. More filler will correct the other side, but unless I added too much skim coat in this location, it's not going away.

Right side: All looks good except for that spot on the bottom third of the reverse. It flattens out there and kinda makes a point rather than keeping the sweep of the curve. That's my novice metal shaping at work there.
I think this was a bit ambitious for me, seeing that I've never done any metal shaping before. I cut the tank, then cut more to match the existing curves and flow of the tank. Once I started shaping the side piece, it just evolved into this as I followed the lines that were already there from the stock shape. The concave section wasn't meant to be a knee cutout, its just that the top of the tank skinnied up in that section and I followed along. Keeping it straight at the bottom and waving in and out on the top was super hard for me to execute. The bottom of the sides actually curves in, front and back, and stays dead straight through the middle section. The top goes from skinnier to fatter to skinnier to fatter.

As cool as custom tanks are, I'm not sure I want to do this again. Everything about it has been painfully slow.

Next steps:
Work on the trouble spots with body filler to get general shape
feather out smooth and finish sand
respray epoxy primer in these areas
sand again
spray seal coat
sand again
lay my silver base coat
lay the yellow sections
lay the black sections
and finally clear coat it
I'm guessing it's going to take another month.

Virtual Bodyshop

The latest paint scheme from my virtual bodyshop:

RT3 progress shots

November 1st and progress is slow. Completely re-wiring the bike has taken its toll on me. I'm just about done though. Then it's onto the control cables. After that, I'll start it up.


and in b/w:

Here's the as purchased condition for general reference:

-S