New "Project" Bike! Thunderace!

Picked up a new/old ride Thanksgiving morning! It's a 1997 Yamaha YZF1000 - also known as the Thunderace. This one is a low mileage bike (less than 12k) that is in definite need of some TLC. It's a project bike and there is a lot of work needed to bring her back to her glory days, but I think I'll enjoy the challenge.

The vast majority of work is cosmetic. I'll need a couple of fairing pieces and will probably repaint the whole bike. She'll need new tires as well, but I already have a set I had bought for the ZRX - luckily both bikes wear the same size shoes! The bike runs strong, shifts well, and the brakes are great - so I don't anticipate any issues on the mechanical side.

I'll post up pictures when I've got her cleaned up a bit, but for now here's a video of the bike in its prime!


[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BC5Hu-irMiA"]Yamaha YZF 1000R Thunderace - YouTube[/ame]

Congratulations Keith. I had to look this one up.

I wouldn't say the bike is necessarily rare, but it was only imported to the states one year (overseas the bike was available from 1996 to 2003). The USA version did not have the factory "Thunderace" decals, but I think they look pretty cool - so I'll "convert" mine match the Euro models.

This is the still shot that started this whole process...



I was doing "research" into what I was going to get next and was actually looking for older Suzuki GSX models when I stumbled across this image in Google Images online. I clicked on the photo, liked what I saw, then proceeded to track down what it was. Once I knew what I was looking at I did some research on the bikes ergos and found they were VERY similar to the Hayabusa I liked so well. Then it was off to Craigslist to see what I could find. Luckily, there were two here in Texas (one in Sherman and the other here in Houston). The Houston one was WAY over priced and the one in Sherman was a lot further than I wanted to go. I contacted the Houston seller and went by to see the bike early Wednesday morning. It was a mess to be honest - a low mileage bike, but a mess none the less. Two low speed drops had totalled the right side fairings and the bike had multiple scratches on most every panel. The bike was filthy and covered with years of "garage dust" - but it ran VERY good and was quite sound mechanically. That only left the cosmetics to worry over. I made the owner an offer based on the condition of the bike, but he said he couldn't let it go for that. My price was FAR lower than he wanted, but I gave him my reasons for the offer and explained what I was after. The whole "offer conversation" was a polite one and I was as careful as I could be not to insult the owner. In the end he had to decline my offer though.

I left the owners house and went to breakfast at a nearby Dennys - still bikeless. While there I began to tally up what the bike was going to need to see if I could go higher on the price. Unfortunately, I just couldn't justify more than my offer and it looked like a trip to Sherman was on the horizon. But a few hours after I got back home I got an e-mail saying the owner of the Houston bike had reconsidered and the bike was mine if I still wanted it!

All I could say to that was SCORE!!!!!

Congratulations. Good negotiating story too.
We will want progress pictures...

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

Bad Side





Good Side




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

1997 Yamaha YZF1000 - Thunderace

Found some "additional" damage I missed when I looked at the bike. 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...

Hopefully I won't find any more uh ohs...

The R1's daddy!
I've always had lust for the ThunderAce!

The top-gear roll-ons from 60-80 & 80-100 are insane on that bike!

Rare? I've only seen two, and yours is the 2nd one.

Nice find. Good luck with the restoration.

That is one cool bike! Congrats!

An awesome and rare bike for sure. Awesome find, especially here locally. What kept you from buying another Busa if it worked so well for you? Why subject yourself to the frustration and limited availability of rare bike parts?

RECIT said:

An awesome and rare bike for sure. Awesome find, especially here locally. What kept you from buying another Busa if it worked so well for you? Why subject yourself to the frustration and limited availability of rare bike parts?

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I'm one of "those people" who hate to back track. I'll go out of my way to not return down the same road twice in a single trip. Guess that was the issue with the 'Busa; I'd been there - done that. The 'Busa was my favorite bike in all of the bikes I had owned - but there were just too many flavors left in the candy jar to go there again!

Besides - on paper the Thunderace has some advantages over the Hayabusa. The Thunderace has almost the same ergos (35/69 degree lean/knee angle to the 'Busa's 36/67), but it's no where near as porky as the 'Busa. This one weighs in at 494 pounds wet, while the 'Busa tipped the scales at 563. I never noticed the weight of the 'Busa until I bought the ZRX and realized the REX was much easier to throw around in the corners. While the Thunderace weighs the same as the ZRX, it's got 23 more horsepower - which gives it a power to weight ratio that's better than the 'Busa! The Thunderace is also 2" shorter than the 'Busa - here again, making it easier to toss around in the twisties. All in all it "should" be a bike that can easily hang with anything that's out there and give me back the comfort I had with the Hayabusa.

Makes sense.

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. 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! 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.

I had WoodButcher move this thread from the "General" section to "Vintage, Classic & Project Bikes". Seems the thread is morphing into a restoration thread rather than the simple introduction it was intended to be, but that's alright by me! At any rate - welcome to my restoration project!

And thanks WoodButcher for the move!

The Thunderchicken was also sold in Canada, who usually gets the Euro Version (if there was such a thing on this bike)....so if you are looking for parts don't forget to check Craigslist and KiJi up there as well

Moose said:

The Thunderchicken was also sold in Canada, who usually gets the Euro Version (if there was such a thing on this bike)....so if you are looking for parts don't forget to check Craigslist and KiJi up there as well

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Thanks! I didn't think about that.... I'm off to Canada to search for parts! On line of course...

First order of business today was getting the bike registered in my name and the title transfered. There was a new gal at the registration office and she had all kinds of new questions for me. She sure made what should have been an easy process difficult! But, I got'r done! She's mine now.

I had a specialty plate on the ZRX that I just sold that looked cool (ZRX05). I think I'll do something similar for this bike as well. I can get a good yearly rate if I go with a plate that has 3 letters and 2 numbers (or visa versa). My first choice was ACE10, but it was taken. The second choice was 97ACE - and it's available.

Second order of business was new panels. I went ahead and placed an order for the replacement panels and the rear fender today. I didn't order the new lights yet as I'm thinking of using front signal lights on all four corners. I think the stock tail lights stick out a bit further than I want.

I've got two treads on the rebuild running at the same time (the other is on the FZ1 forum). I didn't realize that I hadn't mentioned the lights yet in this thread, but surfice it to say ALL the signal lights are broken or missing on the bike.

The PO used flush mount lights on all four corners and these are unacceptable in my book. Here's the rear view:





As you can see the lights are in the tails cut out... That's NOT where they're suppose to be.

I think I'll go with front signal lights on all 4 corners as they are a bit shorter than the rear signals - which I think stick out too far....

Here's what I bought today...

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 would have liked 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 is interested in the links.

Sweet bike!

Oooo. Love these bikes. Never saw too many of them at all on the street, even back in the late 90's when they were new. Still have my copies of Cycle World and Car & Driver from (IIRC) Dec '96 which pitted the YZF1000R against a preproduction Dodge Viper.

Well, the search for parts goes on. The "updated" order status on my body panel order shows the front cowling, the inner panel, and the rear fender are all on "back order". Which is the kiss of death for a 16 year old bike, 'cause they sure as heck ain't gonna make any more...

The two side fairings are now listed as "available", so it looks good for those items.

Sharp looking bike!

Keith said:

Well, the search for parts goes on. The "updated" order status on my body panel order shows the front cowling, the inner panel, and the rear fender are all on "back order". Which is the kiss of death for a 16 year old bike, 'cause they sure as heck ain't gonna make any more...

The two side fairings are now listed as "available", so it looks good for those items.

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HOLD THE PHONE! Just got an e-mail from powersportsplus, they are shipping the order COMPLETE today!

I am one happy camper!

So, I went by the local Yamaha dealer today. I don't like their setup, but hey - it ain't my shop; they can do whatever they want.

At any rate, my bike only came with one key and it's pretty beat up - so I'm looking to score two blanks that I can take to the local locksmith for cutting. The parts guy goes to look up the part number and then proceeds to ask me if I have the original key. Well, of course I do - and of course it's not with me. Seems he can't find a part number (really?) and wants to go to the back and try to match a key. Otherwise he's gonna have to order the whole key assembly at $200 (really?). OK, so now I've confirmed I really don't like my local Yamaha dealer.

I go home, open up Google - and type "Yamaha 1997 YZF1000 Key Blank". I get several hits and in virtual seconds I've got the Yamaha part number for the key (which is YH35RBP in case you're interested) and a cross reference guide to every model that uses the same key (which is quite a few).

Now, since the bone head at the Yamaha dealer was on the internet checking for part numbers to begin with, you'd THINK - because he sure didn't - that he'd have the fore-thought to do the same...

Did I mention I don't like my local dealer...

Keith said:

I go home, open up Google - and type "Yamaha 1997 YZF1000 Key Blank". I get several hits and in virtual seconds I've got the Yamaha part number for the key (which is YH35RBP in case you're interested) and a cross reference guide to every model that uses the same key (which is quite a few).

Now, since the bone head at the Yamaha dealer was on the internet checking for part numbers to begin with, you'd THINK - because he sure didn't - that he'd have the fore-thought to do the same...

Did I mention I don't like my local dealer...

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It has been a long time since I worked at a dealership, but that doesn't look like a standard Yamaha part number.

P-Ratt said:

It has been a long time since I worked at a dealership, but that doesn't look like a standard Yamaha part number.

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Part shown on the internet page "appears" to be identical to the key I have. Even has the plastic head that says Yamaha. They also show non-yamaha key blanks as well (different number). Of course the "picture" could be copied...

It's possible the part number doesn't cross reference to a Yamaha catalog, but then again - the cross reference guide shows this is pretty much the same key Yamaha has used for every bike they have made since 1993. I kinda figured the dealership should have known that...